Category Archives: Password Recovery

Keep Safe Online, Password Recovery, Privacy, Security

Two-Channel Authentication – Wazzat?

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When a site asks you to set up a type of two-level security, you might wonder what they’re talking about. Here’s what you should know about this relatively new way to protect your online identity…and your money!

If you’ve ever called your credit card company, you’ll remember that they always ask a few qualifying questions before they discuss your account. You have to prove that you are you, essentially. When you’re online, most everything you do is secured by a password. What happens when you lose that password or, worse yet, someone steals it? This is where multi-level protection comes in.

Take online banking, for instance. Most banks use a second level of security, taking the form of a question that you must answer correctly after you enter your password. If your bank doesn’t use this type of account lock, you should really consider moving to a more secure banking facility. Additionally, make sure your answers do not have anything to do with the question. If the question chosen is ‘Name of your first pet’, set the answer to be anything but the name of that pet. Your birthplace? Same thing. Almost anyone can pick up bits and pieces of your personal information from many different sources. Lock up your bank account(s) with cryptic answers to all security questions.

Photo of Two Factor Authentication
You want to use privacy protection like this. It makes everything more secure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Outlook, etc. make sure you sign up for two-step confirmation. For all of these sites, you can use your mobile number to receive a code that lets the site know it’s OK to let you change your password or log in from a new device. Look for ways to activate this. Facebook has been using this technique for quite a while. Outlook now makes it mandatory. Sure, it is a bit of a pain but they’re doing this for you, not for themselves. Protect your identity and personal information with as many levels of security as possible. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

Thanks for reading! Here’s a link to our very own Facebook page: Computers Made Simple on Facebook   Like the page and you’ll get all of our updates instantly.

 

Password Recovery, Privacy

Passwords – How to create a good one

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No visuals today, just common sense. As you know by now, about the only people you can keep out of your email and social networking accounts are your friends and hackers. Hackers in this case means people not associated with your government or your local authorities. The key to keeping your online accounts safe is a good password. The longer a password is, the stronger it is. The problem with this is that long passwords are hard to remember, right? Here’s how you can create a unique, reasonably hack-proof password.

1. Today we’ll use something named a mnemonic which will help you remember your new password. Mnemonics are easy ways to remember things, sometimes they are visual, sometimes they are simply bits of information that you remember easily because they are part of your everyday life.

Photo of Mnemonics 1
What a post about mnemonics without Keanu Reeves?

2. Let’s run through some things that are easy to remember. Your birthday, year of birth, address, first phone number, cell number, height, weight, first teacher’s name, first pet’s color, etc.

3. On your keyboard, each number and many letters type something different when you press the Shift key. Additionally, some numbers resemble letters. 3, for instance, could be an E or a zero could be an ‘o’. Let’s see if we can make something out of all of this:

Birth date: 1972

Height: 172

Street Address: 102 Moxley

Pet’s name: Ginger

If we mix and mingle these stray thoughts, we could come up with something like:  19!)@Mox&@Gin

How did we come up with this string of gibberish? 19 is obvious, first two numbers of the birth date. !)@ is 102 but typed with the shift key pressed.  Mox is obvious. &@ is the leftover part of the birth date while Gin is clearly part of the pet’s name.

Why not try this technique for one of your email accounts? Make sure it’s one that you have a second means of access, in other words one that has a security email account that will be contacted if you forget your password. Better yet, write the password down in Notepad and mail it to yourself at another email account. Use a clue word, something like pizza to search for. Don’t use ‘password’ since this is a dead give-away for anyone searching through your emails.

After you’ve created the password, try typing it a few times while running the original sources through your mind. You may see it as 19102Moxley72Ginger but don’t worry about it. Just remember to shorten the things that have to be shortened and use the shift key where necessary. It will begin to be like a rhyme, something that you won’t be able to forget if you wanted to! Our example is 13 digits, plenty long enough to stump even the smartest normal hacker out there. It would take a very long time for an average computer using brute force to crack it. Email providers and social networking sites lock your account anyway if you try the wrong password several times in a row.

Good luck and let us know if you’re got similar suggestions for a secure email.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Password Recovery, Security

Recover Saved Passwords in Chrome

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If you have recently lost your Facebook or Youtube password, here’s a quick way to recover it without going through the ‘Lost Password’ routine on the website. Our example here is for Google Chrome but we think this will work in a similar fashion with Firefox. We recommend Chrome, however.

1. The single ‘must have’ here is that you must have saved the password when Chrome asked you “Would you like Chrome to remember your password?” If this is the case, move on to step 2.

2. In any window or tab, look for the three horizontal lines up on the top right side.

Photo of Password Recovery1
Click on the horizontal lines.

 

3. Click on the word ‘Settings’ when the menu pops down:

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Click on the words Settings.

 

4. The page that opens up will have the words ‘Show advanced settings’ down near the bottom. Click there:

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Click on the words.

 

5. What you’re looking for now is the Passwords and Forms section. If you have the ‘Offer to save passwords I enter on the web’ box checked, click on the words ‘ Manage saved passwords’.

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This only works if you have let Chrome remember the passwords.

 

6. The next few photos have been edited but you can get the idea of what you’re looking at. The first thing you see is a list of your saved passwords. The website will be on the left while the passwords (hidden) will be on the right. In between is your username for each site. Here’s the first pic:

 

7. Now, you’re probably asking, “What good is this? The passwords are all hidden.” Well, click just to the right of any password and the word ‘Show’ will appear. Like this:

Password Recovery 8
Click just to the right and choose ‘Show’.

 

8. Once you click ‘Show’, the password appears. Cool huh?

TIP: As you can see, this trick can be used to recover usernames, passwords and websites. Seems like fun, right? It’s not so much fun if you are on a shared computer, however. Can you see how this little secret can be used against you? Do you really want everyone who uses your computer to be able to access your passwords and usernames? We think not. Suit yourself but on a shared or public computer, we would NOT recommend that you let Chrome (or any browser) save your passwords.

If you don’t want Chrome to remember your passwords, go back to the menu and uncheck the box that reads ‘Offer to save passwords I enter on the web’.

There is another way to recover passwords in Chrome, even passwords that you haven’t saved. We’ll get to that in another post.

Thanks for reading!