If you are a regular reader of Loginhelper you know that security does not end with the selection of a strong account password. The password may be the most important aspect, but there are other factors to consider. This includes making sure you are on the right site before you key in your login name and password, or protecting your email account that is connected to Facebook.
Facebook’s Security Settings can further improve your security when interacting with the social networking site. This short guide looks at all available options, and explains how to best configure the settings to protect your Facebook account.
You can load this page or click on the down arrow, select Account Settings and then Security to open the settings page.
We have seen many attacks on user account information in the past years. These kind of attacks have increased as the Internet moved forward to become everyone’s favorite pasttime, and even more than that. Attackers are still making use of phishing attacks, mostly by sending out mass mails, to steal login, financial and identity related information. A second group has moved on though and started to hack the servers and websites directly to download their databases.
With part of the user base selecting weak passwords, it is easy to parse through the database to get a list of working passwords in record time.
Good security begins with a strong password. Opinions differ a lot when it comes to the definition of strong. Most agree that users should not pick dictionary words (like apple), first or last names, teams, brands or other words that may make their way on a word list. If you are asking me, I’d say your password should at least have 12 characters, and if possible at least one upper char, one lower char, one number and one special char. Tgo5ggg3dc_rr4 would be a strong password.
Strong passwords are just the beginning though. Some websites for instance may save your password in plain text. It is a security taboo, as it provides attackers who download the site’s database with all the information they need to wreak maximum havoc on the site and its users.
That’s one of the reasons why 2-factor authentication is so important. This basically adds another log in layer to the login process. Facebook and Google make use of 2-factor authentication.
2-factor authentication
With 2-factor authentication enabled, you will receive a code on your mobile phone or device that you need to enter to complete the login process. An attacker who managed to steal your username and password, for instance with a keylogger, would not be able to log in to the site if the additional authentication step had been enabled previously.
Google users can enable 2-step verification in their Google account. This link opens the Account Settings page on the Google website
You need to click on the edit link next to 2-step verification to configure the security layer. Please note that you need to enter a mobile phone number during setup. This is the number that Google will send the codes to whenever they are needed.
I suggest you open the official announcement post over at the official Google blog site to read up on the instructions.
Facebook’s 2-factor authentication system works slightly different than Google’s. It only asks for a code if a user tries to log in from a new device. It is still important to activate it to improve the account security.
You can configure the feature here on Facebook’s Security Settings page.
Please note that you need to have a mobile phone number configured in your account to complete the setup.
Live.com is Microsoft’s all in one authentication service where you can register and then use the same credentials for many different things. For example, if you own an Xbox, or have a Windows Live Messenger account, or if you use Hotmail, then you’ll already have a Windows live.com sign in.
Many people like having one single username and password to access services they use regularly. It saves the need to remember multiple passwords, and in this day and age when there seems to be so many different websites needing usernames and passwords to access them, having less to remember is a godsend. A single sign in point also means that once you’ve used your live.com sign in to access one service, you’ll also be able to access all the other services too. Your computer should remember your credentials in its memory, or cache, and not bother you again.
Photobucket is one of the most popular video and photo hosting websites on the Internet these days. It is only natural that some users of the hosting service experience login issues. Probably one thing that makes it more difficulty is the fact that users can log in with a Photobucket account, or with their Twitter or Facebook login instead. That’s three different ways to log in and three different approaches to fixing the login.
The first thing that users need to do when facing login issues on Photobucket, is to lean back and analyze what they see. Is the page loading at all, do they get an error message? Can they enter their login data? What’s happening then, do they see a login error, a blank page, nothing at all? There are hundreds of possibilities here. Lets start with the basics and go from there.
It is probably a good idea to start with an explanation and go from there. Login Software refers to applications and tools that are linked to log ins. They can be used to manage all your account logins, to sign you in automatically on sites, or to perform other tasks like generating secure passwords to make sure that passwords cannot be guessed by attackers.
Login Software
The software comes in two major forms: First as web browser plugins and second as standalone applications for the desktop. Both types have their distinct advantages and disadvantages.
There has been lots of talk lately about company server hacks. You have probably heard about the Sony incident where millions of data sets were downloaded by hackers. Last Pass, the company behind the password manager of the same name, noticed irregularities as well and asked their users to change the master passwords of their account.
A local password manager like KeePass would have been especially helpful in the LastPass case, as your data would not be exposed on the Internet at all. The fundamental difference between online and offline password managers is the storage location and responsibility. Online password managers like LastPass store the account logins and information in the cloud, while offline password managers store login related information on the user’s computer.
To sign in describes the process of logging in to a service or website. The terms sign in, log in, and the nouns signin and login, are synonymic in this regard. You will encounter sign in troubles eventually and if you believe in Moore’s Law likely at the worst possible time. Waiting for an import email but you cannot sign in to Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo Mail? Want to check up on your Facebook friends only to find out that the Facebook log in is not working?
The following guide lists several troubleshooting options that can be used to resolve the majority of sign in and log in related problems on the Internet. Lets start.
Consumer Reports login issues are a common problem for email and chat users. If you are having trouble logging into your Consumer Reports account, you might not think there is anything else that you can do besides emailing technical support, but in fact there are quite a few options available for you. On the one hand, emailing tech support probably will help you, but on the other, it will most likely be days or even weeks before you get a useful reply since there are literally millions of users of Consumer Reports.
This easy guide will provide you with help for your Consumer Reports sign-in issues. With any luck and a little bit of patience, your sign in issues will be solved before you get that response from customer support.
Consumer Reports is one of the biggest providers of car reports and consumer reviews with literally hundreds of millions of users, it is quite likely that a good number of them will have either technical issue or problems with passwords or keystrokes. Most of the problems can be broken into a short list of categories. Here are the most common sign in Consumer Reports problems:
Microsoft’s Hotmail email service is one of the most popular services on the Internet. Hotmail was recently integrated into Windows Live, and received a makeover in the process. One of the changes in the process is that users can now sign into Hotmail on the Internet, or by using Windows Live Mail, the mail program that supports logging into Hotmail to read and write emails.
This article acts as a guide for Hotmail users who have sign in or log in troubles on the website or in Windows Live Mail. Those are usually connected, meaning if it is not possible to sign in to the homepage it is also not possible to use Windows Live Mail to access the account.
In this post, we are going to give you some Twitter login troubleshooting tips. It can happen that users who try to log in to Twitter see error pages or messages when they enter their username and password. Why? There are several possibilities and this guide will help you in resolving those issues.
Lets take a look at the Twitter login process first, to see how it should be, and then which problems can arise during the procedure.
To log into Twitter users type in http://twitter.com/login into the browser’s address bar. This opens a page that looks like the one on the screenshot below.
