We have a lot of experience helping people reset passwords and recover access to online accounts. Our best advice on how to prevent getting locked out of online accounts: update your personal information! Especially for important accounts, like email and banking. All of this information lies in the ‘Settings’ of those accounts. It is crucial to fill in certain information, so that the account is tied to you in more ways than just a password. We will walk you through which bits are the most important to keep updated, and why.
Make sure your phone number is a current cell phone number
If you have an old cell phone number listed, or a land line phone number, change this immediately. You want to list a cell phone that can receive texts. This allows a reset code or a confirmation code to be sent to you, proving you are the owner of the account.
Add a backup email address
If you don’t have a second email address, use a spouse or a child’s email. Or create a 2nd email that you only use for this purpose. Again, this allows a reset code or a confirmation code to be sent to you, proving you are the owner of the account.
Change old and insecure passwords
It is a good idea to change old passwords – especially if they are easy to guess. A strong password should always contain numbers of symbols, upper and lower case letters, and be AT LEAST 8 characters long.
Trying to get back into an account that has been hacked into is much harder than keeping the hacker out of your account in the first place. It is a good idea to add 2 factor authentication while updating passwords.
Prevent Getting Locked out – Today!
We have helped many people who have lost access to online accounts, particularly to their email accounts. Sometimes there is just no way back in. Think about what you would lose – all of your old emails, incoming emails, and possibly all of your contacts. Depending on your account, you may also lose access to photos and documents stored in the cloud. Don’t wait to update this information, prevent yourself from getting locked out of your online accounts today!
This is also a good time to backup your data. In this case, we are talking about online data such as emails, or photos stored in the cloud. The process here is different. To learn more about backing up data and cloud storage, check out our other blog posts:
Difference Between Cloud Storage and Backups?
What Does iCloud Backup Contain for an iPhone?
If you would like help with this process, just call or email and we’ll be happy to assist you! If you have specific questions, or if our terminology isn’t clear, please use our contact form to send us a message. Thank you!
