How to improve your online security? Change your passwords now

Frances Knox, 44, from Hertfordshire, has resolved to change her passwords every month after she had her Skype account maliciously taken over by fraudsters on 21 December.

“The password was actually given to me years ago by a computer technician,” says Knox, who runs her own PR agency. “He clearly used the same pattern for everyone – an amalgamation of the town you lived in and your age; the fact that at the time I lived in the capital city of a European country made it ridiculously easy to crack.

“I’d probably been using this password for multiple accounts for 15 years. It was obviously not the cleverest of moves on my part and it’s been a major wake-up call. I’m planning to change my Skype password monthly to protect myself, as far as possible, from it happening again. I’ve also changed and strengthened all my other passwords.”

Charlie Svensson, an IT security expert at Sentor, an international IT security consultancy, says people “often have very guessable passwords related to their loved-ones or pets, so to help protect yourself make your passwords alphanumeric and ideally not based on complete words”.

David Emm, principal security analyst at Kaspersky Lab, recommends using a unique password for every single online site. “Use a mixture of letters, numbers and special characters and make sure they’re at least 15 characters long,” he says.

Knox was first alerted to the fact that her account had been hacked by one of her friends, who had been contacted via her Skype account and asked for money.

“The hacker was very sophisticated and would correspond with my contacts as though he or she were me, making pleasant chit chat, and would then ask them for a loan of money,” Knox says. “In addition the hacker sent me a couple of emails under the alias ‘Holly Smile’, asking if I wanted my Skype ID and password back. It was horrible, really sinister – and as I couldn’t remember all my Skype contacts I couldn’t even warn people.”

Knox immediately contacted Skype, but claims she received no reply from their customer support service until 30 December, when she finally managed to recover her account. She spent “hours and hours” trying to reset her password, but the hacker had changed the email address linked to the Skype account.

Knox logged the fraud with the police, who recommended that she have her computers checked. This cost £100 through a local company.

So, how can you protect yourself?

Never use the same passwords for social media accounts, bank accounts, or any other online accounts. If you do, it’s a bit like having one master key, so if fraudsters find out what this is, they will be able to access all your accounts.

Choose passwords which are long, use a combination of lower and upper case letters, and include numbers. This will make them much harder to guess.

Consider using “login verification” too. Instead of relying on just a password, login verification introduces a second check, to make sure that you and only you can access your online accounts.

You should also activate privacy settings on your social media accounts. Ken Munro, senior partner at Pen Test Partners, says: “Social media networks have improved their privacy settings but these are often opt-in. Social networks make money from your data, so they don’t always make it easy to lock down your profile .”

Get anti-virus software for your smartphone and tablet too – and you don’t have to pay. “You don’t need to buy expensive anti-virus software,” says Dr Kevin Curran, technical expert at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). “The free versions of programmes AVG and Avast are good, not to mention Microsoft Security Essentials or Defender, which are free on Windows.”

Finally, use common sense. As Richard Cassidy, technical director at cyber security company Alert Logic, says: “Quite simply if there is a modicum of uncertainty, then don’t respond to a message or click on a link – the same is also true for any communication over email we might receive from a bank or personal suppliers.”