I’m pretty tech savvy. I change passwords, don’t reuse them, keep them hard to guess, etc.
That said, like almost everyone, I’ve been in data breaches and my email address(es) have too. You can see yours at sites like https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Obviously I no longer use the passwords for those email addresses that I did then, but is it worth changing the email addresses too, especially for two factor authentication? One address in particular is linked to a lot of important accounts for password recovery, 2 factor authentication and such.
Any security folks here able to advise if it’s enough that I changed PWs or if I should use one of my newer email addresses for important account recovery?
Yep thanks @Knowsstuff - I use a password manager. I block web trackers, my credit is frozen - I do all the things we are advised to do.
Really just wondering if there’s any reason to change my 2 factor auth to a different email address than the one I’ve been using for that, which has been in several breaches.
Don’t think so. It’s like we all have been in several it seems. My identity was hacked and someone tried to open up credit cards in my name… Agh…
Froze my accounts, reported to Fcc and police. It all sucks.
I think you can only do the best you can do. If they don’t have your passwords then your good. Your user name doesn’t open up the safe per se. Only your password does.
You can use this on your phone or computer. I use it on CC to block the ads that you all were seeing with the new change. Never saw one. My friend’s that are in security tend to use this browser also.
@Knowsstuff thank you. I switched to Firefox awhile back, and Startpage (google without the tracking) , and some extensions that enhance my privacy (block trackers). Password manager, as I said, some other things (won’t get too specific on a forum that google indexes daily!).
It’s a freaking jungle out there and our legal system/politicians are only beginning to pay attention.
If you receive spam at your email address, then your email is out there anyway – whether or not it’s been exposed in another hack. And I’m sure the baddies can figure out that emails are commonly used for user names – whether or not they’ve picked one up in a breach. In other words, all the people who send spam, scam, and phishing emails already have that half of the information. The main thing is to never use the same password on more than one site, and use very secure passwords.