Take Care With Your Account Info

The Internet has opened the world up for many people. You can now find more information than you could possibly manage, and many people have found employment and spouses through online activities. Old friends are reconnecting, and missing people can be found. Any advice you need on anything is out there as long as you know how to search it out. On the other hand, there is a darker side to the Internet. It has opened up a whole new world for thieves, con artists, and swindlers. This is why no matter how much or how little you do online, you have to guard your account info.

You wouldn't think to share things with a stranger on the street that you may leave open to the public online. Are your social network pages open? Do you really want strangers to know when you shower or that your home will be empty because you are going on vacation? One step in keeping your account info safe is to keep a tight seal on social networking pages. Think about the security questions you answer to secure your bank account. These things often include your mom's maiden name, the name of your first pet and other personal tidbits. If you leave your Facebook open to the public, thieves can get most of this right from your page. Your account info is at risk.

Along the same lines, your account info is protected by those questions, so change the questions. You often have the option of writing your own questions or picking from a long list. Choose questions that are not commonly used and for goodness sake, make up your answers. You don't have to answer these truthfully as long as you can remember what you put for your answer. Designate a notebook to keep in your home with all of your passwords and answers to your questions. If you answer the questions with wrong responses, no one can use such things to access your account info, but you can look up what you put down if you get locked out.

Passwords are still essential online to protect your account info for email, banking, Paypal, and your social network pages. Don't make the mistake of using passwords that are easy to remember, refer to members of your family or your hobbies, and certainly don't use the same password twice. You have to use words that mean nothing to you personally, and you have to put random numbers in your passwords. This requires you to keep notes on all passwords, but your financial security is at stake. Random, impersonal passwords with numbers and characters (if possible) go a long way to guard your account info.

Lastly, you can protect your account info by being very careful about links you click on. If your friend posts a video on your news feed on Facebook, and you are pretty sure they would never do such a thing, don't click. If you get an email asking you to sign into your bank account or Paypal account, don't do it. Call the company on the phone about the issue mentioned, or at the very least open up a new browser window and type in the address you know for the homepages of the service or business. Never click the link or your account info will be compromised. Con artists and scammers pray on the optimistic and the dreamer – so learn to be a bit pessimistic online, and remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.