Please protect yourselves online

[Vanth]

Recently, an Armageddon player's game account was hacked, along with at least one other account on an outside website.  This would be a good time to review how to protect yourself online.

1. Be wary of how much personal information you post online.  If you post links to all your messengers, your Facebook, your MySpace, your blog, and your email address, a hacker has more information to guess what your logins and even your passwords might be.

2. Be wary of clicking on links in emails.  Phishing is when someone sends you an email that looks like it might be a notice from eBay, your bank, or MySpace, but actually it leads to a site where you enter your password and give it to the phisher.  Clicking on links in emails can also lead to you inadvertently downloading a virus or trojan.  Many browsers have a feature where when you hover your mouse over the link, it shows where the link actually goes to.

3. Make sure the security software and firewall on your computer are up-to-date and enabled.  This is pretty self-explanatory.

4. Use different login/password combinations for everything, and use passwords that are not easy to guess.  If, for example, someone manages to get your eBay password, you don't want them to be able to also use that login/password to access your email, blog, credit card statements, and bank account.

5. Be wary of who you allow to use your computer.  Other people can install programs like keystroke loggers, which record every character you type including, yes, your passwords.

6.  Be wary of what you download.  Something that looks like a RP log might actually be dangerous.  Even if you trust the other person completely, if they are infected with a virus, it can infect you this way.  Most security programs can scan an attachment before you download it.  Or you can just paste things in the body of the email to be safe.

7. Be especially careful with wireless connections.  They are not as secure as wired internet connections.

8. Educate yourself on other ways to keep yourself secure on the internet.  The types of threats out there are always changing.

[Vanth]

9. Do not participate in "chain letter" emails. link you are all going to hover over and verify before clicking, right?