passwordMy baby brother is in Kosovo, this is his second tour. I received an email from his hotmail account today, with a random link that I would immediately recognize as spam. My first instinct was to let him know via Facebook and send him an email telling him to change his password. Since he was overseas, I also took the liberty of emailing everyone else I noticed got the email with a few friendly tips including not to click on the link.

Here are a few tips to keep your password and information safe from hackers:

  • The best password is the kind that can not be guessed. Particularly if it uses numbers, letters and symbols like !@#%!^.
  • Do not use your birthday, anniversary or anything that can be found on Facebook.
  • You want a password that is easy for YOU to remember but hard for everyone else to guess. So ORADH$#^AERHBER $#3463 is probably not a good password because it would be hard to remember. I’d recommend 5-10 characters long.
  • Remember your bank pin number should not have anything in common with your online passwords.
  • Your bank, email and social networks should each have their own passwords. You can reuse the same password on multiple platforms but keep those three types of accounts separately.
  • Do not save your passwords in a notebook next to your desk.
  • Do not save your passwords on your desktop in a text document.
  • If you let your browser remember your passwords for you, be sure to log out every time you leave your computer.
  • If you get emails from social networks like Facebook, Craigslist or personal accounts like Paypal. You are better off opening a new tab and typing in the url yourself. Links that look like http://paypal.com can still be LINKED to a site like PAYME.com which will steal your information.
Good luck!