Aug 08
The Internet offers many opportunities to its users. But it also has a dark side, that many users are unaware of, or chose to ignore. In Security 101, we discuss five aspects that ever Internet user needs to know to protect the computer, data, and identity online.
- In downloads, we discuss the dangers of downloading files from the Internet, and options to make sure the file downloads are safe before executing them on the local computer.
- In Privacy, we discuss privacy related topics like identity theft, and offer advise how to avoid it.
- In Phishing, we explain the concept, and provide the means to avoid phishing forever.
- In Spam, we detail how spammers find email addresses, and what you can do to protect your email from them.
- In Updates, we discuss the importance of keeping the computer system, and its software up to date to avoid leaving the system’s vulnerable to attackers.
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Jul 19
We have covered helpful guides on how to fix login problems at Facebook, Google Mail, MySpace or PayPal in the past.
Today we are going to take a look at the popular social networking service Orkut. Orkut is owned by Google, which means that the Google username and password are used to log into the website. The risk associated with losing the account login is higher than that of other services, largely because the login allows the attacker to log in and use other Google services as well. It is for instance possible to log into Gmail with the same account details.
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Jul 17
We have been receiving an increased amount of emails and comments of Facebook users who have difficulties logging into the popular social networking website. Our initial guide, called Facebook Login, has helped many Facebook users, but some still had difficulties despite the guidance.
We have created a PowerPoint presentation and a PDF document to better aid Facebook users log into the website. Both documents have the same contents and contain all the necessary information to fix Facebook login problems.
You can download the help documents below. We have also added them to the sidebar here at Login Helper and linked them in the original Facebook login post for greatest exposure.
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Jul 10
Not the username, but the password is the most important part of an online account, and it is relatively easy to explain why. A username usually is displayed somewhere on the site the account is for. A Facebook wall post, a reply in an online forum or the writing of an article all show the username in one form or the other. And even if the username is not displayed openly it can be guessed more easily or often substituted with a user’s email address.
test your password
An account password on the other hand is not visible anywhere. Attackers with the right account password can usually get into an account easily, not so on the other hand if they only have the email or username of the user on the site.
Now that we have established that passwords are the most important part of a user’s online presence we need to find out how to make them as secure as possible.
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Jun 17
We have shown in past articles like Gmail login or Facebook login how to handle security and login problems on those sites.
This article takes a closer look at some general options that Firefox users have to increase their online security. We have already reviewed two Firefox add-ons in the past, the Last Pass password manager that can generate and remember secure passwords, and the Web of Trust extension that scans links and warns the user if websites are not to be trusted or outright malicious.
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May 05
Temporary email – also known as disposable email or anonymous email – are on the fly generated email addresses. If you wanted to sign up for a website for instance you could use an email address from one of the many disposable email providers to do that without visiting the provider before to create the email. For the technical interested, they use something called catch-all that notices every email that is send to a specific domain (the part after the @) and provide access to it.
Temporary email services are very handy if you want to protect your primary email address or if you are forced to signup for an account to access information.
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Apr 02
I tend to get many requests from people all over the world who like to know if there is a way to find out if a website on the Internet is malicious in nature or dangerous in other ways before accessing it.
There are actually a few possibilities to handle that. Most of these require specific IT knowledge however to look up server and domain information at the domain registrar and query databases that contain relevant information.
A better option for most users is to install a web browser extension that handles all of that for them. And one of those extensions is the Web of Trust extension which is available for Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.
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Mar 16
Whenever you want to signup for a new service on the Internet you need to fill out at least a handful information on the signup page. This usually includes at least an email address, username and password for the service but often additional personal information such as your name, birthday or address. All of those information can be filled out manually which quickly becomes a nuisance if it is done on a regular basis or by using a web browser add-on that can fill out forms automatically.
The excellent password manager Last Pass, which we have reviewed in the past, can be used to fill out forms automatically as well. It supports multiple profiles that need to be created once by the user so that they can be used to fill out forms whenever it is needed. This simplifies and automates the process.
Here is how it is done:
You do need the Last Pass add-on which is available for the web browsers Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet Explorer. The form filler is automatically included in the add-on. A new profile can be created by right-clicking on a blank spot on a website in the web browser and selecting the Last Pass Fill Forms options which opens a submenu with options to add or edit a profile. Continue reading »
Mar 06
You probably have come upon password security questions before. They are often used when a user forgets the password to an account to identify the user. The major problem with those security questions is the fact that they often only display general questions that the user can chose from during configuration. This includes the mother’s maiden name, the first school, the favorite sports team or the birthplace.
Asking those questions is problematic because of two things. First, they are not that secure if the attacker has access to information about you. Your mother for instance would surely know most of the answers to those questions, as would a close friend and even most work colleagues or class mates might. The second problem with these type of questions is that they can also be easily guessed. The number of possibilities is a lot smaller than the number of possible passwords for an account meaning an attacker could simply try the most popular answers to see if they would be a hit.
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Feb 24
MySpace was one of the first websites to start the social networking boom. It is not the most visited social networking site anymore – this is Facebook by now – but still visited by millions of users per day.
That naturally results in users having problems logging into the website from time to time. A second problem is that MySpace users are regularly targeted by hackers and phishers and that this can also result in the account being inaccessible.
A MySpace user experiencing login issues needs to analyse the situation carefully. Is the MySpace website loading? Are error messages displayed? Are the MySpace username or password accepted?
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