Do you have a Linkedin account? Do you use Facebook or Twitter? Have a WordPress Blog or Tumblr? How about Pinterest or other social networks? Gmail or Yahoo!? I hope you’re not using the same password for these personal services as you do for your Amazon account. Earlier this summer over 6.5 million passwords to LinkedIn accounts were leaked and posted to a Russian hacking site.
If your email or social network password is compromised, you don’t want it to affect your business do you? I just heard from an Amazon seller whose Amazon account was hacked (he still isn’t sure how). The hackers posted a few items for sale but didn’t seem to do anything malicious. Nevertheless Amazon revoked his selling privileges and cancelled his account.
There’s no way to be 100% protected against hackers but there are steps you can take to protect your Amazon account:
- Don’t use your Amazon password for any other service
- All of your passwords, whether they’re required to be or not, should be a mix of letters (upper and lower-case), numbers and symbols
- Change your Amazon password frequently
- When you hear that a service you use has had a security breach, change all of your passwords immediately. You can set up Google alerts to find out about leaked or hacked passwords.
- Use anti-virus software, like Microsoft Security Essentials,
Remember, this is something that could cost you money or even your entire business. It’s not worth taking chances over.