A Small Guide to Email Security

Hello Friends, today we will talk about email security, how to protect our email accounts from hackers. And what are the mistakes we commit which makes us vulnerable. Before starting the real ways through which hackers hack our email address, I would like to explain the reasons through which we got compromised.

1. Simple and Guessable Passwords: We are entering into 2013 era, but still last year NASSCOM survey just created the blunder in information security market when they revealed that in India up to 60% of people from age 32 years and above have their official email password as their phone number. Now this is a big vulnerability. Passwords like phone no, children names, wife girl friend names, are very common these days and we thought who is going to put this kind of password. And at the end of the we have up to 60% of people who using still these kind of passwords. So if you still have your password as phone no then I think it’s the time to change it.
2. Secret Question AKA Recovery Questions: Every email service as well as Facebook like website comes up with secret question option aka recovery questions. Again problem is that people put secret question which can easily be guessed. Like “What is your pet name”   ,”Where was I born” etc, and if you have this kind of secret questions I don’t think so you are secured in any case.
3. Putting a secure password: Now question arises what should I do, what kind of password should I place? First you should understand that before placing any password you should know about how secure password is. And how much time will it take to be cracked by hackers. So for checking here is a website named HowSecureIsMyPassword which gives a free facility to check your password.

Here lets take an example if my password is rahul then how much time it will take for a hacker to crack my password. See below figure.

So as you can see rahul as password is not secure he he, let me try a good password which will take a long time for a super computer even to get close of it.

Now as you can see this password will take 8 million years to get cracked. Hence it’s a fabulous password.  To know the password you can ping me @ Facebook orTwitter.

So here a small guide to protect your emails , soon will also write its second part A complete guide to email security, only on OpenBin. Its Rahul Tyagi Signing Offf Peaceeeee…..

This is a Guest Post by Mr. Rahul Tyagi, Sr. Security Analyst @ TechDefence Pvt Ltd. He has written popular book Hacking Crux 2 on Security & Ethical Hacking.