While the Internet may have been considered as one of the best things that had happened to society in the recent century, it has also opened the way for more and more fraudulent actions to be carried out easily. Hacking is one such action. Because the Internet is used by people from all parts of the world, it is extremely difficult for various government agencies to monitor the various activities conducted over the Internet.

Perhaps the most targeted of Internet hackers is your email for the primary reason that once you sign up for an account with a particular service or purchase a particular product over the Internet, the first thing that is often done is to send you a confirmation email containing your username and password for that particular account that you have created. While many people would often print out the information and delete this email, some would rather store these in their email for convenience in the event that they forget their username and/or password. Once a hacker is able to enter your email address, he or she would be able to view your personal information and would be able to access these accounts which would be able to provide them with more information regarding you. This would allow them to do transactions in your account with your profile resulting to various fraudulent activities.

It is for this reason that extreme caution must be done in order to protect your email from being hacked in order to protect yourself from possible fraudulent activities. Here are some ways you would be able to do this:

Creative passwords and password retrieval questions :
Apart from not using personal information as your password or answers to retrieve your password, make sure that you use a password that combines letters, numbers and symbols. It is also a good idea to incorporate capital and small letters instead of merely using all caps or all small letters. This increases the number of combinations that a hacker would need to decipher, lowering his or her chances to access your account. With regards to your password retrieval, do not use actual information. Instead, provide information that you would be able to remember yet something that is unrelated to you since the first few tries of a hacker will be to use accurate and actual information regarding you to retrieve your password.

Do not leave important emails in your mailbox :
The moment you receive a confirmation letter from a website where you have signed up, print out the information or write it down on a notepad and delete the email immediately. This would ensure that no personal information would be derived directly from your email whether by a hacker or a close friend.

Change password regularly :
Make sure that you change your passwords and answers to retrieve your password information on a regular basis. This is to ensure that by the time that a hacker has been able to decipher your old password you are now using a different password which would then cause them to go back to square one. This is particularly important if you have allowed someone to access your email or other account with your permission to prevent the possibility of them accessing your accounts without your consent in the future.