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<p>NEW YORK (AP) &#8212; Details from the Department of Justice indictment of Russian hackers on Wednesday show that many people are still not taking routine precautions to safeguard their email accounts &#8212; and hackers are exploiting that.</p><p>The Russian hackers didn&#8217;t have to work very hard to break into people&#8217;s email accounts, even those belonging to government officials or powerful executives. Here&#8217;s a look at a few simple ways to help safeguard your email account from hackers.</p><p><strong>Don&#8217;t reuse passwords</strong></p><p>Many online break-ins result when people have reused a password across, say, their email, social and financial accounts. If it&#8217;s compromised at any one of those services, the others are suddenly vulnerable.</p><p>One simple way to avoid this problem is to start with a base password you can remember, and then add on letters and numbers that reference where you&#8217;re using it. If your base password is &#8220;greatsurfer2017&#8221; (which isn&#8217;t particularly secure; more on that in a moment), you could make &#8220;greatsurfer2017Y&#8221; your Yahoo password, and &#8220;greatsurfer2017G&#8221; your Google password.</p><p>If you can&#8217;t be bothered to do more, this is a base level of security that can help shield you from the most obvious threats. But it&#8217;s still only a baby step.</p><p><strong>Pick a stronger password</strong></p><p>You can make things harder for attackers by making your base password stronger. The more complicated and lengthy a password is, the harder it will be for hackers to guess.</p><p>The downside: Tougher passwords are also harder to remember. But there are some ways around that.</p><p>Don&#8217;t include your kids&#8217; names, birthdays or references to any other personal details. Hackers routinely troll Facebook and Twitter for clues to passwords like these. Obvious and default passwords such as &#8220;Password123&#8221; are also bad, as are words commonly found in dictionaries, as these are used in programs hackers have to automate guesses.</p><p>You can make your own strong passwords with randomly capitalized nonsense words interspersed with numbers and characters &#8212; like, say, &#8220;giLLy31!florp.&#8221; (Just don&#8217;t use that one now that it&#8217;s appeared in this story.) So long as you&#8217;re making up the words yourself, these are difficult for hackers to crack &#8212; and they&#8217;re easier to remember than you might think, though you might want to practice them a few times.</p><p><strong>Have your passwords managed for you</strong></p><p>Of course, you can make things easier on yourself by using a password-manager service such as LastPass or DashLane, which keep track of multiple complex passwords for you. Some web browsers such as Apple&#8217;s Safari and Google&#8217;s Chrome also have built-in password managers; these work if you switch devices, but not if you switch browsers.</p><p>After you create a strong password for your password manager, it can create random passwords for your other accounts &#8212; and will remember them for you as well.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s more secure and it makes your life easier,&#8221; said Jamie Winterton, director of strategy at the Global Security Initiative at Arizona State University.</p><p><strong>Multifactor authentication is a must</strong></p><p>The next line of defense is two- or multifactor authentication, which asks users to enter a second form of identification, such as a code texted to their phone, when they log in. It&#8217;s now commonplace for many email and social media accounts. That way, even if hackers manage to get your password they still need your phone with the texted code.</p><p>&#8220;Having another way for that account to say &#8216;Hey, is that really you?&#8217;, and give veto authority is really important,&#8221; Winterton said.</p><p><strong>Keywords matter</strong></p><p>According to the indictment, the Russian hackers searched email accounts for keywords like &#8220;passwords&#8221; to find people&#8217;s passwords for other accounts. They also searched for &#8220;credit card&#8221; &#8221;visa,&#8221; among other terms. So think twice before you use common key words that can serve as a road map to sensitive information for hackers. And don&#8217;t save passwords in old emails.</p><p>&#8220;There&#8217;s not one single thing out there that can keep you perfectly safe,&#8221; Winterton said. &#8220;But there are a lot of different things out there that can keep you almost perfectly safe.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">In an indictment Wednesday announcing charges against four Russians, U.S. officials describe how Russian hackers working with Russian intelligence officials broke into Yahoo&#8217;s network, stole information on Yahoo user accounts and ultimately gained entry into other services used by individuals they were targeting. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_115569190-73763c2791d040e793d0f9b7b42c5652.jpg</photo0><caption0>In an indictment Wednesday announcing charges against four Russians, U.S. officials describe how Russian hackers working with Russian intelligence officials broke into Yahoo&#8217;s network, stole information on Yahoo user accounts and ultimately gained entry into other services used by individuals they were targeting. </caption0><photoCredit0>Marcio Jose Sanchez File Photo | AP Photo </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mae Anderson</p><p>AP Technology Writer</p></bylineMeta></div>

How to elude Russian email hackers with decent password security