THERESA
Customer Service
Many people come to email questions asking for help because their email account has been hacked and they are locked out. Most times after it has been hacked, vital information has been changed which makes it impossible to recover. People are frantic because they have lost access to important emails and sometimes work emails and there is nothing they can do to recover them. It is IMPERATIVE that you take the necessary steps to protect your account BEFORE you have a problem and it is too late.
If you follow the guides that I am going to talk about here, you will have taken the important steps to protect your account.
The first thing you should do is create a sign in seal. This is a picture that you select to appear when you go to the yahoo sign in page to access your email. This sign in seal should ALWAYS show up at the top of your log in box for yahoo mail if you are using the computer you set it up on. If the sign in seal does not show up, you are NOT on a legitimate yahoo site and you should immediately close the tab. DO NOT log in with your information. Remember if you are logging in from any other computer (other than the one you set it up on) the sign in seal (picture) will not show up but that doesn't mean you are on an illegitimate page. If you are unsure, you can type the address directly in your browser: mail.yahoo.com
1) HERE are the instructions to create your unique sign in seal.
Here is a sample picture of what you will see
2) HERE are the instructions to turn on second sign-in verification. (this will send a code to your phone if there is a log in attempt from a device that yahoo doesn't recognize) If you are on your home computer and put in the code they text to you, it will not ask again for a verification code from your home phone because it is a trusted and recognized device. If a spammer somehow gets your log in information and tries to log in from their computer, it will ask for the code and they will not have it and it will not let them log in. If you ever get a code sent to your phone and you aren't trying to log in, you should log into your account immediately and change your password to be safe.
3) HERE are the instructions to turn on SSL (this means that your traffic between yahoo and your computer is encrypted) It protects you from someone who may be able to use a router to pick your information out of the air. It DOES NOT HELP YOU if you have spyware on your computer directly. For spyware, you need to use a program like malwarebytes
4) another very important step is to go in and change all of your answers to your security questions. You should LIE!! If you think about it, people that know you well, would know the real answers to your security questions. (first grade teacher, color of your first car, street you grew up on etc) You should have a set list of answers that are lies so you don't forget them. You could also choose a silly word instead of what would logically be used for the answer. Instead of your favorite color answer being purple, you could use the word shazam.
More about security questions and answers and how to protect yourself can be found HERE
If you're ever curious if anyone has ever logged into your account, you can follow the steps HERE to find out.
If you follow the guides that I am going to talk about here, you will have taken the important steps to protect your account.
The first thing you should do is create a sign in seal. This is a picture that you select to appear when you go to the yahoo sign in page to access your email. This sign in seal should ALWAYS show up at the top of your log in box for yahoo mail if you are using the computer you set it up on. If the sign in seal does not show up, you are NOT on a legitimate yahoo site and you should immediately close the tab. DO NOT log in with your information. Remember if you are logging in from any other computer (other than the one you set it up on) the sign in seal (picture) will not show up but that doesn't mean you are on an illegitimate page. If you are unsure, you can type the address directly in your browser: mail.yahoo.com
1) HERE are the instructions to create your unique sign in seal.
Here is a sample picture of what you will see
2) HERE are the instructions to turn on second sign-in verification. (this will send a code to your phone if there is a log in attempt from a device that yahoo doesn't recognize) If you are on your home computer and put in the code they text to you, it will not ask again for a verification code from your home phone because it is a trusted and recognized device. If a spammer somehow gets your log in information and tries to log in from their computer, it will ask for the code and they will not have it and it will not let them log in. If you ever get a code sent to your phone and you aren't trying to log in, you should log into your account immediately and change your password to be safe.
3) HERE are the instructions to turn on SSL (this means that your traffic between yahoo and your computer is encrypted) It protects you from someone who may be able to use a router to pick your information out of the air. It DOES NOT HELP YOU if you have spyware on your computer directly. For spyware, you need to use a program like malwarebytes
4) another very important step is to go in and change all of your answers to your security questions. You should LIE!! If you think about it, people that know you well, would know the real answers to your security questions. (first grade teacher, color of your first car, street you grew up on etc) You should have a set list of answers that are lies so you don't forget them. You could also choose a silly word instead of what would logically be used for the answer. Instead of your favorite color answer being purple, you could use the word shazam.
More about security questions and answers and how to protect yourself can be found HERE
If you're ever curious if anyone has ever logged into your account, you can follow the steps HERE to find out.
