Your email contains most of your personal information like passwords, bank statements and other relevant details. Therefore, there is need to keep your Gmail account safe and secure to avoid being hacked by fraudsters.
Although no one wants to be hacked, individuals who are yet to take good safety measures against spam might be vulnerable to these online spam actors looking for who to defraud. So, while sitting at home, take few minutes of your time and secure your Gmail account today.
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Useful Tips You can use to secure your Gmail account
1. Enable two-factor Authentication
Enabling the two-factor Authentication also known as two-step verification on your email account is a good measure to take in order to secure your Gmail account. It is a double-layered verification that requires a separate mode of authenticating account ownership.
A random six-digit passcode will be sent to your phone whenever a third party is trying to access your account. This will make it extremely difficult for any hacker to access your Gmail since they don’t have physical access to your phone.
2. Use Unique and Strong Password
Password is one thing that many of us are not really keen about, we often create simple passwords that are easy to remember and keep using them for multiple purpose on different sites and services. This can be very detrimental to your safety online, because once, your password is leaked hackers can have access to all your accounts.
Fortunately, Google offers you a chance to change your password. In my opinion, I suggest that you include letters, numbers, and figures while choosing your passwords. You can mix upper and lower case letters where possible. Also, it is advisable that you use separate passwords each for your online accounts. Meanwhile, you can keep your password safe with any of the password managers available online.
3. Update your Backup Contacts.
Most time we tend to care lesser about our Gmail backup contacts because things seem to be going on well. You have to be very mindful of your backup contacts because Google will use it to verify your account ownership if you get locked out.
Your Backup contacts include the recovery email you filled in while creating your Gmail account, the security question and recovery phone. You should keep this details safe and up to date. Take some time now and check on ways to verify it’s you on your Gmail account and update where necessary.
4. Review your account activity.
It is possible that your Gmail account is being monitored by a third party without your consent. Probably, someone who has your password may be trying to lock you out of your account. The good news is this, with Google services you can view your past login activities.
To review your account activity, scroll down to the bottom of you Gmail account page and click on details of last account activity, this will show you how, where and when your account was logged in or used. If you notice any spam action, sign out and change your password as fast as possible.
