How to Protect your Important Email and Web Accounts?

Mrinmay Bhattacharjee | March 20, 2009 More


Someday back I wrote an article about Preparing yourself against future Gmail account Hack.

email-netbanking-security

In this post I will share some important things regarding security of your E-mail, Bank and all other important web accounts.

1. E-mail services (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail etc.) and Important Net Banking Accounts uses SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), which encrypts your data over TCP/IP Protocol. If you want to know whether a particular given site supports SSL Security, you have to look for a Small Yellow Coloured Lock Icon (See Below):

browser-security-lock-ssl

As per the image above, you will see this icon at Bottom of Firefox, while in Opera you will see it at the Top, just after the URL Box. The above screenshot is taken using Gmail. For other browser it will be probably be present at the bottom.

Now sometimes due to some errors Partial Encryption takes place between your Web Browser and Account Server, than you will get the following Lock Icon:

partial-encryption

To get rid of this, simply retype the URL in new Tab/Window or try refreshing the page in your Web Browser.

You can click on this Yellow Coloured Lock Icon to view Security Certificate Details (See a screenshot below):

example-security-certificate-ssl

2. It’s utmost important that you always create a very Strong Password using whole Keyboard’s key combination, which includes Alphabets, Numbers and Special Characters like $%^&*() etc. For more security you can create your Password using Text Flipping Technique.

3. If you are using Gmail than you can constantly Monitor your Account Login Activity.

4. Make sure there is no Keylogger Program installed in your computer. Try using Best Security Freewares for scanning your PC for such threats or you can go for Online Scanning. For increased security it’s recommended that you run your Browser under SandBox (See Example Sandbox Image below):

5. Make sure, you check your whole system whether there’s any Threat Processes Running.

6. You can always make use of Disposable E-mail Address for registering at sites for which you are not sure about your Privacy Protection. This will also eliminate tons of SPAM Messages.

Hope above points helps in protectecting your Important Web Accounts! If you know more or want to share your views, please use the comments section below.

Category: Security, Web

Comments are closed.