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Post by darkpast on Jan 19, 2020 5:22:02 GMT
not spam from real places, but fake emails say i won gift cards, or apple itunes receipt order nonsense
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Post by mslo79 on Jan 19, 2020 8:16:25 GMT
Probably not much you can do about it for your current email address besides redirect the stuff to your spam folder etc. but what email service as you using? ; I suggest Gmail (Google's Email) in general as I tend not to get much spam there (very little in fact) and it's definitely more secure than Yahoo's email for example which they proved they can't be trusted given their past (i.e. tinyurl.com/h6lpehj ). once all of that happened, I transferred anything of any real importance over to my Gmail account as my Yahoo account I just use for less important stuff now (and obviously, I changed the password that I login with as a precaution). but say you create a new Gmail email... it's a good idea to not give out that email address much which will help keep it off the radar and less likely to receive spam (although I imagine Google themselves has a pretty good spam filter to keep stuff out of your Inbox or from reaching you straight up etc). just try to use it for more important stuff and your current email with the spam for lesser important stuff. also, don't post your email address on any website that's publicly viewable as that can increase your spam to.
here is a website you can enter your email address to see if it was ever compromised in a data leak etc... haveibeenpwned.com/ ; if your email is listed, don't panic, your probably still okay especially if your using a secure password that you changed after the leak etc. they even have a 'Passwords' section on that site you can do a search to see if your password is compromised as their database has over a half of billion real world passwords people used that got leaked/discovered over the years (so if your password is shown in there, I would definitely change it asap if you want to play it safe). even if you don't trust entering your password there, you can at least see if your email was compromised in a data leak which is safe to check. that site is run by Troy Hunt (you can easily search his name online), who's legit. p.s. and as usual... ALWAYS use a secure password for a email address tied to anything you do that's important online as this way it's chances of being compromised decrease quite a bit. for example... if some cyber criminal got a hold of your email address password you use for a lot of what you do online, it could be used to reset the passwords for other accounts you got etc (definitely not something you want happening). I strongly recommend people use a password managing program (make sure your computer is virus free first), which is free, as all you have to do is remember one good password, which is called the master password, which then gives you access to the encrypted database the password manager creates, and from there you can create long random/secure password for use on each site you have as the program can generate them for you (so basically I don't even know the passwords to all websites I have a account on as all I got to remember is the password to access the database the password manager creates and then you can do simple copy/paste stuff). this way if one site was compromised, you ain't got to worry about other sites you use being effected as that's a mistake many people make is they use the same so-so password on many sites they use and if that is compromised a cyber criminal could potentially compromise other sites you got access to fairly quickly. and to state the obvious... one you setup your password manager program and setup the sites you use within it, make sure you make a backup copy of the database file it creates on say a USB thumb drive etc and store it in a secure location. this way if your computer/smart phone etc dies out of no where, you will still have access to the database file and can use it to sign into your accounts from another computer etc. on a side note... another bonus with Gmail is it supports hardware security keys which are the most secure form of two-factor authentication available right now as with those (i.e. Yubikey etc(you need two... one for general use and one stored in a secure location in case you lose your primary Yubikey) ; which are about $30-40 for two basic USB Yubikey's which work well on general computers) even if someone got a hold of your username/password, they still can't access your Gmail email. these security keys are not critical but definitely increase the security of your Google account. at the very least I strongly recommend people use a password manager. NOTE: apparently one can use their iPhone etc for a physical security key, but what I personally don't like about that is it's ONE DEVICE and if that device dies, it might be a chore to regain access to your account which is why I tend to prefer the standard Yubikey method (buy two Yubikeys) for use on general computers instead as this way if one ever dies or gets lost/stolen etc, you can use your other key to login to your Gmail account and remove the lost key and then simply go buy another replacement Yubikey and register it to your Google account and you now have the two Yubikey setup once again I am just giving you some basic tips online to keep your stuff, your stuff and not someone elses ; because at least using a general password manager keeps you out of the 'low hanging fruit' range of people as they say. so hackers are much less likely to compromise your accounts and it does not take that much effort either once it's setup and not only that some password managers work across multiple OS's like Windows/Linux/Android. so a database you create say on Windows can be transferred over to your Android smart phone for example and used on that. but personally... I would avoid using smart phones for anything important online and stick to a proper computer for that stuff since they tend to be a bit more secure since they are security updates regularly unlike many Android smart phones which could take months or may never get security updates which I suspect is more true on more generic smart phones as after a certain point the manufacturer drops support of it. although if your using some of the name brands, like say Samsung etc etc, they should be solid for a while.
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