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Your Friends Email, Stolen, Could Endanger Your Blog

One of the hottest US National news stories, this month, is about Hillary Clinton and how she endangered the security of this country by using an insecure email address.

One of her mistakes involved her having a friend who had her email address in his address book, when his email account was hacked. And that is how your friends email accounts can be used, to attack your email account.

Even if your email account is not revealed, openly, a friend - or fellow blog owner - who reveals her / his email address, can have his / her Blogger account, blog, and email account stolen. And with the possibility that you and your friend exchange emails, there is vulnerability to your email account, your Blogger account, and your blog.

The lesson that we should learn from Hillary is that your friends can be your (second) biggest mistake.

Not only is revealing your email address a security risk, having friends, who reveal their email addresses, can present a similar risk. Their mistakes can endanger your account and blogs - and your mistakes can endanger theirs.

Hillary had an advantage, that you won't have. Once she discovered the intrusion, she simply reset her email account, changed the password (we hope!) - and got back what the hacker did not destroy.

She was lucky - her hacker only wanted to "poke around", and see what he could find. Theft for ransom, a popular blog hacking scenario, is what you may experience.

If your Blogger account, GMail account, and / or blogs are stolen, don't count on help from Blogger / Google. They don't know you, personally - and to them, you could be a would be blog thief.

More than ever, we see the need for everybody to use Google 2-Step Verification. If not for your own sake, help to protect your friends.

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