Your email, marketplace, social media and payment accounts are your business. If someone takes over your email, they can reset every other password, message your clients in your name and redirect your payments. Protecting your accounts is basic professional practice.
Strong, separate passwords
- Use a long password for each important account. A phrase of several unrelated words is easier to remember and harder to guess than a short word with a number.
- Use a different password for each account. If one site is breached, the others stay safe.
- Never use your name, birthday, phone number or "123" patterns.
- Consider a reputable password manager app to store them, or at least keep them somewhere private and offline, not in a shared notebook or a chat.
Turn on 2 Step Verification
2 Step Verification (sometimes called two factor authentication) means signing in needs your password plus something else, such as a code sent to your phone or shown in an authenticator app. Even if someone steals your password, they cannot get in without the second step. Turn it on for email first, then for payment, marketplace and social media accounts.
Never share a verification code. No genuine bank, platform or mobile money company will ask you for a one time code or your PIN by phone or message. Anyone who asks is trying to take over your account.