Blog hijack, how to protect yourself.

Recently, I have been reading many reports of blogs being hijacked on the Google Blogger Help forum. Nitcrutz (Chuck) wrote a good post on it: Is your blog gtting hijacked through your computer
Stolen Computers
(close new window to get back to this page).

Among many recommendations is to strengthen your password. I have since done that. Fortunately I have a way of creating long password with numbers mixed. I would like to disclose the method I use, but that would be exposing myself, so you will have to find your own way. The only thing I feel safe talking about is it consist of 3 parts which are easy for me to remember. Also, I am mullti-lingual. Hope these hints helps you. The only drawback is the hassel of remembering long password (which in my case is not difficult) and to have to type in long password. I have changed the gmail account password as well as the Google account password (I thought they share the same password, but they don't) for my beta blog. If you want further information about creating strong passwords, have a look at this article: Strong passwords: How to create and use them (close new window to return to this page). Another site on creating hard to guess password: Choosing good password (close new window to get back to this page).

Amazon computer products

Another safe surfing tactic you may want to use is to install 2 or more user accounts for Windows, one with administrative rights which you use only when you need to install software, and the other non-administrative for general surfing. For me, unfortunately, I have a habit of having 3 browsers opened simultaneosly, and I have not figured out the way to install Opera such that it is also accessable for non-administrator users, so I am sort of forced to use the administrator account most of the time. When I find out how to install Opera for all users, I will begin to follow my own advice.

To Change your Blogger or Google password

Sign into blogger.com (Dashboard). On the top left, under EDIT PROFILE, click "Accounts". In the next page, there will be a long list of Google services, which all uses the Google account. Click "change password". Type in your current password. Below, there will be 2 boxes to type in the new password. They must match.

Note: This will change the password to all Google account related services such as Gmail, Google analytics, etc., but not your Google AdSense account.

To protect your hardwork and prevent headaches, do read Chuck's articles: The real Blogger Status (close new window to get back to this page).

Update 29 November 2006: Looks like having Norton Securities and strenthening my password from 10 characters to 15 didn't help. My Blogger account was hijacked and all (except one of which I am only a team member wasn't listed in my Dashboard, and all the blogs were redirected, for me to google.com.my, for others to other sites. Do read Chuck's articles if you want to protect yourself. Meanwhile, Chuck is trying to figure out how the hijack happened. Blogger employee helped to restore access to 2 of my blogs. It must have something to do with the template as changing the template removed the redirects. How the bad guys got into Blogger's templates we still can't figure out.

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