We all hear about someone we know getting hacked and we ear horror stories about people who have money taken out of their accounts and very serious criminal activity that could ruin someone’s financial situation in a heartbeat. After many surveys and studies, it has become quite obvious and apparent that the most common way that people get hacked, is via email. The reason why email hacking is so common, is because this is the best method to get to know password and activity that people have in other networks.
Most people will use their main email account to open accounts in several place. This includes social media and all kinds of services. The biggest issue is when bank account info is stolen, any other password that leads to websites that you earn money from. With that said, one of the most popular free email providers is Gmail. A lot of people use Gmail as their main email account and this is even more common now that so many services work with a single Gmail account to login (YouTube and Google plus being two of the most popular).
We are here to offer you some great tips that will help you keep your Gmail account safe from hacking.
Create a good password
Believe it or not, there are still people out there who use passwords like qwerty and 12345, but you know better than that if you have any important information in your email database. The best way to create a password is to make it random and avoid using your birthday or your pet’s name. These are all things that anyone could easily find out to hack your account. Use passwords that contain letter and numbers and if possible, also include upper cases and symbols to make it even harder for them to be hacked.
Never open emails from unknown sources
This is something that should be common knowledge by now, but some people still fail to follow this simple advice and they end up getting hacked for following a link that takes them to a screen asking to login with their Gmail account. The screen is a decoy that captures the users email account and password.

Check your forwarding
You should take the time to check the settings that you have on your email and make sure that your email forwarding is set to an account that you selected. Some hackers will actually leave your email untouched and simple get forwards by setting their own email for this purpose.
Check your computer for malware
You can have a virus in your computer and note even be aware of the damage that it’s doing. Do a good scan of your computer and this is going to give you peace of mind. There are many reliable scanners and antivirus software options that you can choose from.
Don’t use public computer to login
Only use a public computer to login to your email account when it’s a serious emergency. There is no way for you to know the state of the computer and if it might be infected
Change your password often
You should never use the same password for an account for more than 6 months. Even if you consider this to be a hassle, you should change it at least once a year.
Hopefully you will put this to good use and this is going to help you protect your account from any hacking. If you use Gmail to store a lot of important information, these are essential security measures to take.

Sharon Callix
Award Winning Social Media Expert, UK
Speaker of The Year Finalist 2015
www.makingmoneyusingsocialmedia.com