How to secure your email address

To secure yahoo email

Mail security tips

There are nearly 275 million Yahoo! Mail account holders worldwide.

Since one Yahoo! Mail address is in the news today, I thought this might be a good time to remind everyone about some online safety tips that will help protect your account. (In order to protect the privacy of our users, we can’t get into specific details of any of our users’ accounts — we know you’d want us to do the same for you!).

Choose a strong password. It’s like a toothbrush – choose a good one and don’t share it. Your Yahoo! Mail password can be any length and can contain spaces, symbols, or numbers –- letting you come up with something that’s easy for you to remember but impossible for someone else to figure out.
Avoid using a complete word from a dictionary (English or otherwise) or a name.
Use at least 7 characters. The more the better. A long but simple password can be safer than a shorter complex one.
Use a combination of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and standard symbols (! @ # $ % ^ &, etc.).
Don’t use personal information that someone could easily figure out. Avoid a password based on information easily obtained about your (a birthday, your child’s name, your phone number, school name, etc.). Don’t use a password you already use for another account, like your bank account PIN. And don’t’ use your Yahoo! ID (or other username) in any form (reversed, capitalized, doubled, etc.).
Avoid the obvious. Attackers tend to first try repeating letters or number sequences (123456). Stay away from “test” or “password.” And when you change your password, which you should do relatively often, don’t just add a number to the end.
Create a sign-in seal. Yahoo! and many financial institutions let you personalize your sign-in page to help you make absolutely sure you’re not falling victim to a phishing scam. See a photo of your cat Rupert? You know it’s safe to proceed.

Also Read

Cybercrime is an industry-wide issue and we’ve been working with the industry in combating it (with innovations like Domain Keys). Rest assured that we take security and privacy very seriously here.

You are the first line of defense. Head over to antispam.yahoo.com and security.yahoo.com for more tips to help you protect your account, your privacy, and your identity.

( Courtesy: John Kremer, Vice President, Yahoo! Mail)

General

Yahoo! takes your security seriously and takes reasonable steps to protect your information. No data transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. The following is a summary of the measures Yahoo! takes to protect your information and descriptions of ways we implement these measures for different types of information you may provide to us. Please see the Yahoo! Security Center for additional information on how to reduce your security risk when online.

Yahoo! continues to evaluate and implement enhancements in security technology and practices, however we can only take steps to help reduce the risks of unauthorized access. Each individual using the Internet can take steps to help protect their information and further minimize the likelihood that a security incident may occur. We describe some of those measures and provide links to information that may be helpful in these pages and within the Yahoo! Security Center.

Security Steps Yahoo Have Taken

Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Yahoo! uses SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption when transmitting certain kinds of information, such as financial services information or payment information. An icon resembling a padlock is displayed on the bottom of most browsers window during SSL transactions that involve credit cards and other forms of payment. Any time Yahoo! asks you for a credit card number on Yahoo! for payment or for verification purposes, it will be SSL encrypted. The information you provide will be stored securely on our servers. Once you choose to store or enter your credit card number on Yahoo!, it will not be displayed back to you in its entirety when you retrieve or edit it in the future. Instead of the entire number, you will only see asterisks and either the first four digits or the last four digits of your number.
Security Key
The Yahoo! Security Key is an additional optional layer of security to control access to sensitive information or services on Yahoo!. Users of financial services such as Yahoo! Wallet, Yahoo! Bill Pay, and Yahoo! Money Manager are asked to create a security key during the sign-up process or when you purchase certain services that require a Yahoo! Wallet. Please note that the Security Key automatically "times out" after an hour and requires the user to sign in again to access Security Key protected areas.
Secure Storage
Yahoo! maintains reasonable physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that comply with federal regulations to protect personal information about you.
Vendors and Partners
Yahoo! works with vendors and partners to protect the security and privacy of user information.
Employee and Contractor Access to Information
Yahoo! limits access to personal information about you to those employees who we reasonably believe need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs.
Education and Training for Employees
Yahoo! has implemented a company-wide education and training program about security that is required of every Yahoo! employee.

Security Steps You Can Take

The following is information about topics that you may want to learn more about and steps you can take to help maintain your account and computer security when online.

Reporting incidents

To Yahoo!
- If you believe your Yahoo! account has been compromised, please report the incident using our contact form.
- If you have been contacted by someone about your Yahoo! account asking for a password, birth date or other personal information, please forward the email to mail-spoof@cc.yahoo-inc.com. Please include the full headers and the HTML source code of the email you received.
- If you are a member of the security community and need to report a technical vulnerability, contact: security@yahoo-inc.com.
To Law Enforcement
In the event that you believe that your personal safety is at risk or if you believe that you may be the victim of identity theft or other illegal conduct, please contact the appropriate federal, state or local law enforcement agencies directly.