I contribute a post monthly to the Law Technology Today blog. You can find all my posts in one convenient location.

The most recent post is called “A Little Knowledge Goes a Long Way in Protecting Your Online Accounts.”

The post highlights a great recent post from Chris Hoffman called “How Attackers Actually ‘Hack Accounts’ Online and How to Protect Yourself.” I call it “a welcome starting point and primer for all of us to understand how accounts get broken into and the simple steps we can take to make our accounts safer than they are now.”

I especially like Hoffman’s conclusion:

”People who say their accounts have been ‘hacked’ are likely guilty of re-using passwords, installing a key logger, or giving their credentials to an attacker after social engineering tricks. They may also have been compromised as a result of easily guessed security questions. If you take proper security precautions, it won’t be easy to ‘hack’ your accounts. Using two-factor authentication can help, too — an attacker will need more than just your password to get in.”

He highlights five key problem areas, with clear and helpful explanations:

1. Reusing Passwords.

2. Keyloggers.

3. Social Engineering.

4. Answering Security Questions.

5. Email Account and Password Resets.

I offer my own take on each of these issues in my post.

Making even a little effort to learn about these issues can really help you protect your online accounts. What are you waiting for?

Dennis Kennedy

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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Facebook in One Hour for Lawyers, the new book from Allison Shields and me, is now available (iBook version here). Our previous book, LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers is also available and also can be downloaded as an iBook. Also still available, The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.