

Not everyone uses a password manager and lots of people have their reasons for not doing so including “I’ve got a good memory”, “I don’t trust password managers”, “I’ve got some straight up KGB algorithm in my brain to generate new and awesome passwords”, etc. The upside is that once you do it, you’ll have effectively inoculated yourself against this misery in the future. We realize this isn’t fun and we realize it’s time consuming if you have lots and lots of accounts. Now is the time to start changing passwords. If someone has access to your email account they also have access to nearly everything else you’ve ever used your email account for-your iTunes login, your account, your credit cards and banking institutions, social media accounts, discussion forums and so on. Answer the questions as though you are your father, a character in a comic book or novel you love, or any other third party that you have a significant degree of knowledge about.ĭon’t neglect these three steps and make sure to look at all the settings on your email account to make sure there are no surprises tucked away! Change Every Password Associated with Your Email AddressĮmail addresses function as the proverbial keys to the castle. One easy way to radically increase the strength of hint questions is to make them about someone other than yourself. Regarding password hints: password recovery systems based on hints are notoriously easy to defeat as it isn’t particularly difficult to get basic information about a person like where they were born, what their cat’s name is, etc.

Here are several things you need to look at: check your recovery email and ensure that it is set to an email address you control, check your password hints and replace them with fresh questions only you know the answer to, check your email forwarding settings to ensure that however compromised your email hasn’t set it up so that all your future email will be forwarded to a 3rd party. In addition to changing your password and setting up two-factor authentication you need to go through the settings on your email account to make sure nothing is out of the ordinary. Go through your email settings with a fine tooth comb. You can read about two-factor authentication for Gmail here.
#Cant resest hbo now password signed up through itunes verification
You likely won’t keep it on forever (two-factor verification is kind of a hassle) but while you’re in lock-down mode and attempting to get everything under control it’s nice to know that someone would need to, for example, have access to your mobile phone and your password in order to gain access to your email account. Although your email service may not offer this feature, if it does turn it on. While you are still logged into your email account complete the following steps.Įnable two-factor authentication. The important thing is that you secure your email immediately with a strong password. Make it a combination of alphanumeric characters and if need be temporarily write it down. Change your password to something completely different than your previous password.
