Stop Getting Your Email Hacked!

(NOTE: Based on time elapsed since the posting of this entry, the BS-o-meter calculates this is 15.678% likely to be something that Ferrett now regrets.)

At least five of my friends have been email-hacked over the last week.  Which is just proof you all need to move to two-factor authentication.
Look, people steal passwords all the time.  They pluck them out of the air over wi-fi, they steal them via keyloggers, they even guess them if you’re an idiot who uses “letmein” (or anything on this list of common passwords).
But if you have a Google or Yahoo account, you can make it so that no one can log into your account without two things: the password, and a security code texted to your phone.  This makes it all but impossible for anyone who’s not you to log in, and will save your account from all sorts of embarrassment.
This sounds inconvenient – what if I lose my cell phone? I have to do this every time? – and so Coding Horror has a very good walkthrough as to how two-factor authentication really works, which I encourage you to read.  I’ve been using it for about six weeks now, and have found it not a problem at all to use.  And I’m a lot safer. Go look at it, then do it now.
If you have a Hotmail account, delete it, burn it, and then burn the ashes.  Microsoft’s security on Hotmail blows, man.  Sorry.

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