I wrote a post about password security yesterday. The importance of having a strong password. Today I get an email from Hostgator my hosting company which says one of my sites is sending out more than 500 emails an hour and they have suspended that account! And I thought I had a strong password. The domain does not have much in it. I have used it in the past to experiment some content management systems.
This was a bit of a shock. What did I do?
- I deleted all the files on the server
- I uninstalled the CMS
- Deleted all email addresses
- Pointed the domain to my domain registrar, Godaddy
That was easy as it was not a domain with a large website. I also contacted Hostgator to identify the security breach and keep me in the loop. The email samples they sent me was definetley spam.
If after all these precautions my domain was hacked into, imagine what can happen if you have a weak password. Please take this seriously and change your passwords to really strong one. Get a software like
Roboform to generate your passwords and change them often to save yourself a lot of trouble.
That is very sobering news. Thanks very much for relaying this message and the helpful advice for taking precautions. I hope the situation gets straightened out very quickly for your sake.
Thanks Francis,
Yes I hope it gets resolved soon. I will post here the outcome.
Weak passwords are like having no passwords. It’s good to see password managers getting some notoriety.
If you are looking for an online password manager, you’d like Passpack.
I work for Passpack so you might say I am a bit partial to it [blush]
We have just added the feature of being able to send clients or family your password… safely:
http://tinyurl.com/5o683v
Hope it helps.
Louise
Louise
Thanks for your post. I took a quick look at passpack. Looks good. I will take it for a spin
Thannks : ) Hope you like it and let me know if you have any questions!
Louise