While it is impossible to guarantee your Facebook account won’t be hacked you can take some steps to decrease the likelihood of some unscrupulous person gaining access to your account. Facebook is approaching 1 Billion users and as such a lot of information is available through Facebook. You may unwittingly post just enough information for someone to steal your identity, or someone may post on your behalf after gaining access to your account. This post may cause embarrassment, job loss or even legal action.

Here are some tips to help prevent the stress that can come with unauthorized access to your account

• Stating the obvious: You really should not share your password to any account with anyone. Today you may be on good terms but tomorrow you may not be. It’s sad to say but you just never know what people are capable of, especially if they are feeling as though they have been screwed.
• Don’t reuse passwords: You should never the same password for multiple sites. Reusing a password repeatedly increases the likelihood that someone else will be able to steal your password. There are utilities available that will store and generate passwords for you if you are someone who struggles with the number of passwords you have to remember. One such utility is Keepass. Using Keepass you can generate passwords for everything that requires one. You only have to set a password for Keepass. Everything else is stored in the Keepass database.
• Use complex passwords: If you are not using a password generator then use passwords that are a combination of letters (upper and lowercase), numbers and symbols. Do not use common words, birthdays or names. There are tools available that make cracking passwords made up of dictionary words or names very easy.
• Turn on https: If you are using http (which is the default setting for Facebook) you are vulnerable to being hacked. Apps that are readily available for Android devices and computers can gain access to your Facebook account in just a few minutes if they are on the same wireless network as you.
• If it’s too good to be true, it probably is: If you notice numerous likes for an image, an odd news story of something that seems a little far-fetched it probably is. Clickjacking is rapidly becoming a form of tricking users into revealing personal information about themselves including passwords and other private data. Think before you click.
• Turn on log in notification: Facebook has a feature similar to Gmail that sends you a notification whenever someone (hopefully you) logs into your account. Upon successful log in you receive a text message notifying you of the log in. The text message includes instructions on what to do if it was not you that logged in.
• Turn on Login Approvals: You can also set Facebook up to require approval of a log in. When someone (hopefully you) attempts to log in a text message with a verification code is sent to you. The person attempting to log in has to enter the verification code in order to continue.
• Check to see active sessions: Check the active sessions for activity that looks suspicious. If you take a look and notice log ins from countries other than the one you live in your account has been compromised and you should change your password immediately. Be careful though. If you use Facebook mobile the activity may not show up locally because the IP address is not provided by your ISP.
• All of these settings (and some others) can be managed by clicking on the upside down triangle next to home then going to Account Settings>Security.

Until next post… safe browsing!

Email hacking is a very common practice. I was amazed at the number of sites that offer to teach you how to hack someone’s email. This is a terrible practice and not only is it an invasion of privacy but it can be used for a variety of illegal practices.

In the news today: “Attorney Appeals Decision in Palin Email Hacking” as reported on NewsChannel5.com, a young man has been found guilty of hacking into Sarah Palin’s email account during the presidential campaign. His sentence can be 21 months in jail! This is certainly no laughing matter. For those folks who have had their email hacked… there is nothing funny about it. What can you do to prevent your email from being hacked?

1. Never give personal or account information in an email.

Most email accounts are hacked by ‘phishing’. Phishing is when you receive an email from what appears to be a legitimate site and it asks you to click on links or enter personal/private information. NEVER do this, because if you do, you have just given the hacker the personal info they need to access’ your accounts, like banking or credit card details.

These hackers can be very clever and they work hard to make the ‘phishing site’ appear like the legitimate website. If you receive an email from your bank and it asks you to click on a link within the email…don’t do it. If it asks for account info…don’t do it. If you know the website address of your bank, type it in your browser. Then login and you will see if there are any messages for you. Any legitimate bank will never ask you for personal account details in an email. Alternately, you can call your bank, using the phone number on your bank statements or in the phone book. Never use the one on the email.

2. Use an Internet browser that has ‘phishing filters’. A phishing filter is a software program that works to identify fraudulent websites which attempt to represent the legitimate sites. Firefox and Windows 7 are just two of the browsers that incorporate phishing filters.

3. Check for filters in your email account. If for example you use Gmail, you can login and go to your settings and then check your filters. See if you recognize them as ones you set up. If not, get rid of it.

4. Never click on links within an email unless you know the page it is taking you to. I have found a very useful tool called ‘Cooliris’ and it is a plugin which allows you to preview a page without clicking on the link. Not only does it keep you from clicking on a link you don’t want to go to, it also saves time by not having to open another webpage or tab to view the destination page of the link.

Here is a link to download Cooliris http://www.coolpreviews.com/firefox/options-firefox.php.

Remember, hackers usually access our emails when we open the door for them. Be alert and take care when clicking on links within emails when you are unsure about them in any way.

This is how you can help prevent email hacking.

Psychics are asked a lot of unusual questions. One of the most far out psychic questions is as follows: Is my mobile phone being hacked? Now phone hacking is serious business. But I am about to show you it is far more common than you might think!

Phone hacking is making headlines around the world and it is indeed a scandal. It is a common question to ask psychics these days. A good psychic will let you know if your mobile phone is being hacked. It can be as simple as working with a tarot card reading and doing a simple yes or no tarot card spread. That will tell you. Perhaps the clairvoyant has natural psychic ability and can sense some kind of sinister listening device attached to your phone.

If your mobile phone is being listened upon by an unwelcome third party it is best to keep the conversation bland and short. Never give away any personal information when speaking on a cell phone if you suspect someone is listening. Keep all of the private and intimate details of your family life as confidential as possible!

One of the biggest obstacles psychics find is that many of the good and hardworking people of the world refuse to believe anyone else would stoop so low as to listen in on their mobile phone calls. It is a common practice. Information gathering is the name of the game these days and many around us have zero morals so they view phone hacking as a normal part of business.

Of course if you are the unsuspecting one being listened to this puts you at a huge disadvantage. But better to be sure than sorry. It is a sad fact that this question comes up in psychic readings nowadays: Is my mobile phone being hacked by someone?

What irks many when they uncover their private phone conversations have been listened to is the disrespect and the callousness they are shown. It is rude in the extreme, no doubt about that, and a feeling of violation is common.

If you have private information leaked somehow, and only you know about it, this is a good warning sign that someone was listening in on your phone and taking down your information. A psychic has secrets, let us face it, we all have our own secrets, and we prefer to keep them private and not blasted to everyone online, in the media, or even allow our friends to hear about them.

Here is another psychic tip. If you are going into a psychic reading and are about to mention lots of private information to your psychic reader, for goodness sake, don’t make the psychic call on the line you think is being hacked into! This is only giving your unwelcome listeners further ammunition. Go and use another phone that is clean, this way you can be safe to speak to your phone psychic with ease.

Hacking into a mobile is tricky and sinister business but it could happen to anyone. Want to know if you are safe? Ask a psychic the unusual question: Is my mobile phone being hacked?

For years, EZBoard was a community that offered relatively cheap and easy to maintain forums for managers. Virtually anyone could register, design, and layout a site and invite their friends to participate. Indeed, some of the largest forums on the internet are built upon EZBoard. Unfortunately, a recent system-wide hacking attack has destroyed the company’s reputation and sent many managers packing. Let’s look at the venerable community and the fatal flaw that has toppled the company from its perch.

At one time EZBoard boasted over 14,000 web communities. Many were started by individuals seeking a discussion forum for their favorite topics, while others were started by business people such as myself. The reasons businesses were attracted to EZBoard were two-fold:

1. We were not knowledgeable enough about PHP to create and manage a site for ourselves, and

2. We did not want to go through the expense of hosting our site on a dedicated server and, instead, used EZBoard’s vast bank of computers to house our communities.

Admittedly, reason #1 was a huge part of why I stuck with EZBoard. Sure, I knew about vBulletin and related forums but purchasing a license from them and managing the site on a dedicated server was a pricey option, especially since at one time I was managing more than a dozen forums! I could handle the variable charges incurred from being with EZBoard by paying my subscription charges on either a quarterly, semi-annually or even yearly basis. I doubt that I dished out more than $500-600 in any given year, so it was cost effective for my business.

I should have known that EZBoard was not quite up to the task when their system shut down for several days in Spring 2004 after what was supposed to be a simple system-wide update of the forums. A few hours of down time was extended to several days and forum administrators were left in the dark for all of that time. More importantly, many forum members assumed the worst and peppered many an administrator’s inbox with queries. Those days were not fun; EZBoard did recover and gave managers credits exceeding the number of days they were down. Still, if you relied on AdSense revenue — like I do — you lost big time.

History was to repeat itself on May 30, 2005, when a reported outside attack by hackers brought down EZBoard altogether. Yes, the boards were still working, but the majority of messages were gone and any new ones also began to disappear. EZBoard admitted almost immediately they were hacked and were working diligently to restore the 9000 boards affected. Soon, however, the news came out that much of their backup files were hacked as well. Forum managers wondered if EZBoard kept all their files on vulnerable servers or if the attack was done internally. Messages from EZBoard management were vague “in the interest of security” so nobody knew for sure.

As the days passed and forum managers realized that the restoral process would only be partial and take weeks to accomplish, a steady stream of managers began to hit the php sites to see about moving their boards. With trepidation I visited the PHPBB2 site knowing that my skillsets were limited in this area. However, I soon learned that this particular program was open source — in effect, free — and the Flash tutorials explained everything clearly and effectively. So, in one evening I set up the new site, transferred some files, and gave it a launch.

The best part? In the two years since I was with EZBoard my hosting company for web pages had upgraded their site enough to be able to house my message boards. So, instead of having web pages on one server and my forums on another, I could house them collectively. Most importantly, I would no longer have to rely on EZBoard’s flawed backup plans and could backup all the files myself.

I still have one EZBoard community and I may keep it, for now. It is a small, but very well established where it is “sitting” and I lost only 4 or 5 files under the attack. Two of my sites I transferred to PHP and two others I decided to delete as they were slower performers. Fortunately, I had gotten rid of several smaller, no performing sites earlier. Still, I felt the pain of EZBoard’s hacking incident and decided the time to move was now.

So, what is the future of EZBoard? That is hard to tell. They are promising a major upgrade which would include the ability allowing managers to back up their own sites. That would be a very good move. However, the administrative costs with EZBoard now exceed what managers pay with many standard web hosting companies. Few sites are large enough to require a dedicated server, therefore many managers will likely consider making the move away.

I was twice bitten from EZBoard and did not relish a third hit, thus my two largest sites are now with PHPBB2. The move was time consuming, but the new board has many more advanced features compared to EZBoard. Sure, I have more administrative things to do — like help AOL users who have difficulty signing up — but I no longer am subject to the whims of EZBoard. I am glad that a major risk factor has been removed even with the increased administrative responsibilities. You will be too if you decide to make the move.