Protecting Your Passwords - Choosing Security Answers
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Even if you never forget your passwords, this doesn't mean someone else won't try to access your valuable accounts. Your password may be hidden, but your account name almost never is. This means anyone can at least attempt to sign in as you; it's up to you to decide how far they might get in this endeavor.
Choose a truly strong security question, something people honestly won't know about you. Many sites allow you to choose things like your mother's maiden name, your favorite movie, your pet's name or other fairly common questions. Of course you know the answers to these questions - but chances are other people close to you know them as well.
And it's a given that you spend time online. Do you blog? Do you chat? Do you post in forums? Somewhere along the way, at some point, it's likely you told someone what your favorite movie is or that you have a very handsome dog named Lance. This pretty well negates the security part of your security question.
Maybe you shouldn't exactly give a truthful answer to these questions. Why not choose a special code phrase instead that you know you won't forget? Why list a movie, a name or something else fairly easy to figure out when you can choose a code that only you could possibly come up with? You'll remember that you created this code, and potential hackers will wonder why none of your pets' names are giving them access to your password.
Protecting your passwords is something you should keep in mind at all times. It's also a good idea to change your passwords from time to time and update your security questions just to be safe. You have a lot of online accounts, but they're all yours. You don't want anyone else to start screwing around with them.
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