One thing I do with my Paypal account is I only link it to a limited business account that I have that has very limited funds in it - if I need more I just net transfer more - this protects me just in case something like this happens - never link Paypal to your main account.

Thanks for the heads up, I have closed my account with them, have been meaning to do so for a while.

Had to click close my account or equivalant answers 5 times, before they finally did it!!!

I suggest you look at this:

Its a dongle that generates a 6 digit key that has to be typed in with your password when you purchase through them. You can get them from paypal for about $10 or something and its added security that protects you.



BTw, the way they can get your password is by hacking your email account, using random pin combinations (date of birth etc).

Yep , using WPA2 .

Go to the FAQ section of the site! All the information is there!

Ok , it's between closing the account now or purchasing that dongle .

With the dongle , even if they get your passwords they can't log in withtout the 6 digit key , is this correct?

How can you stop them from hacking your email account ?

Not much you can do other than picking a password that isn't personal. They can often pick it up off something like facebook by using your email shown on facebook along with random combinations that include your date of birth. You need to try include a password that has characters, number and @#$% etc. It makes it harder to crack.

So, for example, if your password is huggies, you could change it to Hugg$$1es!^ and it makes it near impossible to guess because of where the characters could be.

Normally they can request a password reminder from paypal if they have your email password and do it overnight when you are not likely to be online so they can delete it from your web email access before you have a chance to see it.

Sweet , i just changed it

Order the key from paypal and then confirm receipt.

Each time you log in to you account with username/password you also need to verify with the 6 digit pin generated from the key. The PIN changes every 30 seconds.

At least you have another form of verification which a unknown party should not be able to obtain without physical access.

I'd reckon the two most common ways an account gets hacked is weak passwords and keyloggers in Windows. I'm rather shocked how weak most people's passwords for critical services such as PayPal are. My passwords are foreign-language phrases with the odd number and non-alphanumeric character thrown in a couple of times. There's no way in hell someone's going to crack a 10+-character password such as the ones I make.

And indeed, someone would only have to crack, say, a Gmail account full of archived password reminders to do a lot of damage to your online life.

Yep i'm ordering it , thanks for that .

For that reason I keep them in PDF format and delete them from my inbox.

Interesting, the OTP token looks like an older model Vasco DigiPass. I wonder how they can supply them for AU$7.50 incl shipping, they token would cost them over $50 after license and maintenance.

Cheers
Steffen.

lucky your bank is refunding your money. what bank do you use ?

do you use safari ?