Mails from contacts who have never mailed before?

Recently everyone I know of, are just discussing about how their mails have been hacked. Its either a link or mail sent from their accounts to all their contacts, or they got a link or mail asking for help or to click a link, that either crashed their systems, or their contacts who mailed them have no clue about it.

So I thought let me get straight to what happening, why, and how can we avoid it.

The Problem

Recently some got mails with just a link and no message at all.

Some got mails saying the person has been kidnapped or is in great trouble when he had gone for a outing, and is in very much need of money, and will give it back to him/her as soon as he comes back.

But when you call that person, or try to get in touch with the contact he/she is not aware of what you talking about.

The reason is simple, his/her account has been hacked unaware of it.

The Solution

How can we avoid this. Some steps to follow.

1.) Always Log Out of your account when you have accessed it in some Cyber Cafe's, our outside place.

2.) Keep your password tricky and safe. You can make your password a mixture of 'Alphanumeric and Special Characters' something like abc@123. Now cracking this type of password takes a long time than cracking the ordinary password with just letters. You could make this using your middle name, your phone number etc.

3.) Keep changing your password every month or two so that even if its hacked, your account gets relocked with new password. But also check if there is any other mail id mentioned in the secondary account section, coz then the hacker will get your changed password to.

4.) While your logged in your account, check out some things like,

Your Sent Items, are any mails sent to people without your knowledge

If so then, do this,

Account Security:

Settings -> Accounts and Import -> Google Account Settings ->

Change Password [pick a new secure password]

Settings -> Accounts and Import -> Google Account Settings ->

Change Password Recovery Options

[verify secret question, SMS and recovery e-mail address]

Potential Spam:

Settings -> General -> Signature [make sure nothing as been added]

Settings -> General -> Vacation Responder [make sure it's disabled and empty]

E-mail Theft:

Settings -> Accounts and Import ->

Send Mail As [make sure it is using your correct e-mail address]

Settings -> Filters [no filters that forward or delete e-mail]

Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP ->

Forwarding [disabled or correct address]

Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP -> POP Download [disabled]

Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP -> IMAP Access [disabled]

5.) Google has come out with Detecting suspicious account activity. It will help you in knowing what happening with your account.

6.) Some tips from Google to keep your data secure.

7.) Dont reply to the mails that you feel suspicious and dont click the links which are not familiar or without any message.

8.) Cleaning the browser cookies always, you can just go to Options in your browser, where you will find methods to delete your history, cookies and temporary files. If you want to do manually then, in the desktop go to START->Run->%temp%, this will open the temporary files folder. Delete all the files and folders there. To delete Cookies, go to My Computer->C Drive->Documents and Settings->Open the folder of your user name->Cookies. Delete all files from here. Done.

9.) It is better to take a back up of your Contacts from your mail to your system, coz sometimes hackers even go to delete the contacts.

Take all these necessary steps, and your're good to go, Hacker Free. Any more troubles do get back to me to resolve anything also you know any more tips do share so I can update the post for everyone.