Yahoo Billion Accounts Hack: Here Are 5 Things You Can Do To Stay Safe From Cyber Frauds

Wednesday was not a good day for Internet biggie Yahoo. The tech giant recently announced its massive data breach which affected over 1 billion accounts. Shockingly, this is not the first time that Yahoo has put its customers in a tough spot. Back in September, 500 million Yahoo accounts were compromised. The Yahoo billion accounts hack actually occurred in August 2013.

We cannot stop what has already taken place, but we sure can take some measures on our own to secure our personal digital safety. Yahoo has released a list of its own recommendations for users to stay safe from cyber frauds, but here is a little more that you can do:

1. Delete mails you don't really need

With expandable online storage, we have forgotten that we should delete unnecessary mails in our mailbox. It may be convenient but it can be a one stop access for the hackers to know all your other linked accounts. They can easily search for these specific accounts and accordingly compromise those accounts, too.

Delete unnecessary welcome mails or password reset prompts from your mailbox. This is not a completely secure method to evade from the hackers but it atleast makes sure that they don't get one single access point to all your other accounts.

2. Keep a check on email forwarding and reply features

There is another unconventional way of avoiding the repurcussions of the Yahoo billion account hack. You must know about e-mail forwarding which can help you get a copy of a mail on some other mailbox. This option is not openly displayed in your account and you can't immediately judge if its active. Hackers will abuse this feature very well and they will switch it on to get all the copies from your email. The hacker can also tweak settings so that he gets a reply to every email you send from your account. Keep a lookout of these settings by being careful and diligent.

3. Set up 2 step authentication on your Yahoo account

Yahoo supports a two factor authentication which means that every sign in also requires that you input the one-time code you received on call or SMS. This means you put this code along with your password and only then can you sign in. Yahoo also has an interesting attribute called Account Key which lets you sign in using phone notifications.

4. Do not reuse your Yahoo account password

There are many programs which let you manage your passwords effectively. You can create individual complex passwords using these softwares. If you still want to hit the conventional memory route, please use tough passwords. Use punctuation marks, phrases etc. to make it tougher to crack. The hack happened in 2013 when the Yahoo account system was not as secure as it is now. They are vulnerable to even simple attacks.

5. Phishing follows breaches

Typically, the Yahoo billion accounts hack may be followed up by phishing attempts. It means that the hackers will send false security notifications to "strengthen your account". In reality, these are malicious programs that you should NOT download. Check carefully about each email you receive as an "official email".

One more thing, start avoiding using security questions or answering them. These suggestions are not just for the users affected in the Yahoo billion accounts hack, this is for every internet user.