If you’re ever had your e-mail hacked into, you know how frustrating the situation can be.  Friends, family members, and clients are getting rogue messages from you that you didn’t send and it can be a headache to get things back to normal.

Your e-mail system has a number of safeguards in place to make harder for someone to hack your e-mail and easier for your to regain control of it—but the safeguards can only work if you’re taken the time in advance to set them up well.

So right now, run this check to be sure your e-mail is secure.

1. Change your password. When’s the last time you changed the password you’re currently using.  The longer the use the same password, the longer a potential hacker has to figure it out.
2. Choose a strong password. Select a password that’s at least 8 characters long and has a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.  Make sure it’s not a give-away like “password” or “123456.”  Also, it should not be a name, a birthdate, or a word found in the dictionary.   Check out our earlier post on how to create and remember a strong password.
3. Review your security questions. If you can’t remember the answers, they won’t be able to help you if you need to reset your password. Choose new questions and answers now if you need to.
4. Check your backup email. Make sure you still have access to your secondary email account, the one they’ll send a message to if you get locked out of your primary account.  If necessary, set up a new secondary account or arrange for reset information to be sent to your cellphone.

If someone does manage to hack into your email, follow the three steps on our sister blog to get things back to normal.

As a real estate professional, one of your on-going tasks is self-promotion. You always want to make sure people know what you do and how to contact you if they ever want to buy or sell real estate.  On the one hand, you’re always looking for ways to circulate your business cards and keep your name and contact information in front of lots of people.  On the other hand, you—like all of us—want to discourage junk e-mail. These two goals, it seems, are mutually exclusive.

Most Internet security experts will tell you that the best way to minimize spam is to avoid the wide distribution of your e-mail address.  They say things like don’t post your business card in public places and don’t drop it in that fishbowl when you’re visiting a restaurant. To avoid getting unsolicited e-mail, they say, you’ve got to keep your e-mail address as private as possible and only share it with your closest friends and associates.   But people who are in business for themselves can’t really survive that way.

It’s a delicate balance, but there are things you can do:

• Have a separate e-mail address for business.  Never use your business e-mail to make Internet purchases or to participate in online forums or discussions.
• Consider having some business cards printed that don’t include your e-mail address.  These will be the ones you post in public places and distribute widely.  If someone in possession of one of these cards needs to reach you, he or she can always call you.
• If you have control over your website, make sure your e-mail address does not appear there for web bots to harvest.  Instead have your webmaster create a form that prospects can complete and send if they need to contact you.
• Also, find out from your webmaster what kind of spam filter you have and how to configure it so doesn’t inadvertently block e-mails you want to receive.
• Never reply to suspicious e-mails. Instead, mark them as spam or delete them.