In the past few days, I received emails from one of my relatives and one of my friends in which there was an invitation to click on a link.  The only thing was that, although the emails had the person’s name, the return email address was an address that ended in .jp – the emails came from an email server in Japan.

Both of these emails showed addresses in the “TO” field besides my own.  When I spoke with the people involved, they identified the other people the email was sent to as people from their address book (contacts).  What this means is that their email accounts were hacked and their address books were stolen!

The first thing I recommended was that they change their email passwords and use a strong password to protect their account.  Unfortunately, their address books were already taken and are “out there” but at least changing the password will prevent the hacker from getting back in and exploring emails and other information.

I often find that people use extremely weak passwords for their email.  Sometimes, this is because they want an easy password to remember; sometimes it’s because no one ever told them their email password should be strong.

For me, my second strongest password is on my email account.  If you’re using a weak password for your email, please don’t wait until your account is broken into.  Change your password today!  Not sure how to create a strong password?  Please click the button below and read our tutorial on passwords!