Why the Password for your Email is Most Important

Posted on Aug 18, 2011 in Computer Security | 2 comments

When you think of possible computer security issues, what login (username and password combination) do you think is most important to protect? (Of course, you should never be careless with any login.)

You might think it’s your Windows password for your computer. True, if your username is “user” and your password is “password1” then you have problems. The fact is, though, any geek with a couple minutes to spare can easily get into your Windows account as long as they have physical access to your computer. They’d just need to Google it and follow the instructions.

What about a login for your website? Perhaps your WordPress username and password, or FTP, or a login for your web host’s control panel? That is pretty important… you hardly want to find out your website has been filled with spam and chasing all your customers away. But with solid backups and prompt action—both to remove the problem and to discover what went wrong so you can make sure nobody can hack it the same way again—you can survive.

What about the username and password for your domain name registrar? This is actually extremely important, far more than people think. Most business owners don’t even have their own login for their domain name! Think about this: even if your website is totally restored, you can replace it from a backup, from a different web host if necessary. If someone else has access to your domain name, they can list themselves as the owner of the domain name, change the password and contact email address to lock you out, and then point your domain name—the domain name you’ve been working hard to market—to any site they like. It could be an adult site, a spam site, a competitor’s site… needless to say, that would be very bad. You’d have to create a brand new name and reputation, or else pay a ransom to get your domain name back.

Email may not seem as important, given the previous nightmare scenarios. But think about this: when you go to a website and click “forgot my password,” what happens?

They send a link or information to your email address to give you access.

If someone has access to your email, they can easily see that services you’ve signed up for (after all, they likely at least sent you a “thanks for signing up!” email), use “forgot my password” to reset the passwords and access any of those services: Facebook, Twitter, other email accounts, your web host, domain name, the whole shebang.

Not only that, but they can send emails as you to your customer base. They know who you’ve talked to. They can see any information you’ve exchanged with clients, vendors and so forth, which is likely to include some sensitive information for your business. At the very least, your customers would lose faith to find you sending them spam.

There are ways to protect against this. You could use one email for talking to customers, and then another email address to sign up for services—and then you would have two logins to protect.

With Google Apps Gmail, you could set up one username, such as “xk157@mydomain.com” and then set a nickname of “firstname.lastname@mydomain.com” and have your email account always send email “from” that address. This can be tricky to set up and may cause problems down the road; some email clients may send from your secret address instead, or it may be flagged as spam incorrectly.

I recommend the following:

  • Set your email connection to always use SSL, especially if you ever connect over public wi-fi (which I would discourage)
  • Change your password regularly. No, really. This is something we always hear, but nobody actually does, but I mean it. If you only change one password every month (or 3 or 6 months, depending on who you talk to), make it this one.
  • Take advantage of the two-step verification process in Google Apps Gmail. In addition to entering your password, you can set it up to ask you for a code that changes every minute and is available from your smartphone (or via text message). Is it annoying? Sure—but it’s a massive improvement security-wise.

What thoughts do you have? Do you have tips on what the typical business/website owner should consider most important security-wise?

2 Comments

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