Help, My Online Account Has Been Hacked – How to Avoid This

How to Avoid This

First off, let me state that over 99% of eBay users are genuinely honest, it is the remainder that catch the headlines as people ONLY report bad news widely.This article is aimed at advising you on how to protect your eBay account. These guides can also be used to protect other online accounts you may hold.
My Online Account Has Been Hacked - How to Avoid This
First off, how do they get my details?

EMAIL

If I was to call you on the telephone and ask for your username and password, you would tell me where to go right? So why do many users enter this information into an unsolicited email?

The types of emails you will receive are called ‘phising emails’ This means as the word depicts, they are trawling or fishing for information. Usually they will include a link back to ‘their servers’ which will in turn capture your information for them to use.

How do I avoid it?

For eBay, that is simple, delete the message and log in using your own link, then log back in using your own link and click ‘reply to seller’s email’. eBay will know you are a real person, you won’t be caught out by their own system.

If you are a seller, you can simply set up a special email address where you will get all of the important information you need to know in one click.

How to spot it?

Remember when you where emailed by a buyer, asking you to click on a link and collect your payment? Well now, the same buyer is back in your email box, asking you to click on a link to ‘update’ your account… again, in a bid to have their account updated.

The first thing you should do is log in using your own link, then select the ‘account owner’ view, and click on the ‘change’ link, inputting all the necessary information as shown on the website.

Why do I need to input the information?

When a site becomes malicious, your computer is in danger. You can end up with viruses, Trojans, adware and all sorts of other nasty codes that can help spread the problem across the Internet.

A hacker can then use this information to attack your computer, and use it to spread spam, viruses and other unpleasant uploaded materials.

Intruders also use brute force attack methods to hack into accounts and use the exact same methods as before, resulting in slow performance for you and your users.

How to fight it?

There are a number of things that can be done to fight against spyware. Firstly, you can equip your computer with the best antivirus software. If you don’t have an antivirus software installed you can download and install Avast or AVG. These will scan your computer and clean it from current infection.

Secondly, keep your computer running in safe mode. This will run the scripts in a safe mode, which will keep any harmful scripts from running. You can download Malwarebytes anti-malware from their website. This software will remove Malwarebytes infection from your computer.

Once you are sure your computer is infected, you need to delete all files that are associated with the Malware. You will be prompted with different options on how to delete the files, but just choose the ones that are normally used and follow the instructions.

Finally, you will get a list of files that need to be deleted. Delete all of the files – even the ones that are needed to run your computer – until you are finished.

Spyware protection is vital if you use the Internet to surf websites, download files, and purchase products. Unfortunately, once infected, your computer can be a nightmare to clean and running constantly. Not only that, but you could spend hours having to reboot your computer.