If you have an e-mail account, this applies to you.

You may have read in the news that Gawker Media angered the hacker community and was attacked as a result. Not the end of the world, but here’s a tip: don’t upset hackers.

Well, I came to find out that my Gawker password and username were on the list of passwords that were stolen by the hackers. In fact, LinkedIn saw my e-mail address on the list and compared it to their list of accounts and just froze my account, just to be safe.

If you ever commented on any of the Gawker websites, your info could be at risk. You can find out if your data is on the list that hackers now have in their possession by using this free tool: http://www.didigetgawkered.com

What are hackers going to do with this data? They are going to try and hijack your e-mail and Twitter accounts. Over the last few days we have had a number of clients who are having issues with e-mail accounts being hacked. Even before the Gawker security issue, this type of attack has been on the rise.

You should never use your e-mail password anywhere but in your e-mail account.

Change your password fairly often, generally once a month is a good rule of thumb.

If you ever sign into your e-mail from a public Wi-Fi hotspot, your account info could be “sniffed” out of the Wi-Fi and used to send SPAM from your e-mail. How common is this? Pretty common, in fact it happened to one of our employees, and it happens all the time.

If you’re travelling, and you need to check your e-mail, check it via webmail, which is uses a secure connection to send your password. Also, beware of using publicly accessed computers at hotels, airports, coffee shops, and Internet cafes as these computers are often not totally secure or have virus or malware software installed on them which can send your key strokes to someone else, who will try to use them for their own benefit.

For more info on this topic right from Gawker, be sure to read this post.

Someone performed a detailed analysis on the list of hacked passwords and found the most popular password among nearly 400,000 exposed by the Gawker hack was “12345″. The word “monkey” and the phrases “letmein” and “trustno1″ also made the top-ten most common passwords that appeared on the list.

For instance a 7 digit all number password (like an old phone number) can be cracked in a little a 17 minutes using the weakest type of attack. Using a strong attack method a 7 digit all numbers password can be cracked instantly. Your password should be a mix of letters, number, and symbols with varying type of capitalization as well. See this chart to see how you stack up.

Are you wondering why certain ex-government officials from Nigeria who happen to have a surplus sum of money they want to give away are seeking you out??

Has your in-box been drowning in a sea of murky SPAM riddled with offers to purchase drugs from Canada, unknown parties trying to get you part with personal info, and notifying you that you’ve won a lottery in the United Kingdom?

If you’re like us and you have an e-mail address that’s been in circulation for a number of years, then you’re most likely all too familiar with the mountains of SPAM that pour into your e-mail account.

Everyone knows what SPAM is, but many folks don’t know that all of that junk e-mail adds up as traffic that slows down your network. All of those of e-mails also take up space on your server and clog in your in-box and web mail interface. Having hundreds of SPAM messages being zinged to you all hours of the day and the night can be a pain when you’re using a mobile device like an iPhone to stay in touch with your e-mail. Before I got my SPAM problem under control, my ratio of real e-mails to spam e-mail was 10 to 1 at the very least. Needless to say it was tough to stay in touch when one has to wade through all of that SPAM from the road.

There’s nothing like a motivated computer consultant when it comes to problem as big as this. Thankfully, MacMedics now has a way to totally control the onslaught of junk e-mail and keep it and the virus threats that come with it off your network, and out of your e-mail box. I was amazed how this service cut 99% of my SPAM out of life and gave me a way to insure I did not accidently block a message I wanted to read.

MacMedics is pleased to offer this service to our clients who have their own domains. It’s cheap, it’s fast, and it’s incredibly easy to use. For $2 (or less) per mailbox, per month, you can take advantage of this amazing tool. This service is not only super effective on filtering junk e-mail and security threats, but it also offers a helpful side benefit of caching your e-mail for you if your server is ever off-line or your lose your Internet connection. When your server is back on the network, all of the mail that was sent to you during your down-time is all sent from the service.

If you’re ready to say GOOD-BYE to SPAM, we’re ready to help get your mail server enrolled in the system. If you’d like more information or a demo of the service, please get in touch with your local MacMedics office or e-mail us (SPAM free of course).

Our SPAM filtering service also offers amazing e-mail hosting with very robust support and excellent webmail interface. If running your own mail server has turned into a pain, we can help you get that off of your network, stop paying for IT support on it, and help you get rid of SPAM at the same time.

The BBC had an interesting article about a study on SPAM and the amount of return that comes from it. The study results show spammers send out 12.5 Million e-mails to get one positive response. That is a ton of SPAM! You can read the article here.

While you ponder that amazing amount of SPAM, consider protecting your in-box, network, and fellow computer users by subscribing to MacMedics’ Anti-SPAM e-mail filtering service. Our service is highly accurate and extremely easy to use, as well as being very cost effective.

You can keep your current mail server and just filter for SPAM and virus infected e-mails, or you can also host your e-mail on our server as well. There’s a nice little side benefit for the filtering part of the equation, as our filtering service will “cache” any inbound emails if your mail server is ever down or off line for any reason. Many of our clients use the service, some just do the filtering, while others use both filtering and hosting (done on separate servers). Set up is free, and prices start at $2 per mailbox per month. For folks looking for a new mail host this works out to be a really cheap solution that also offers great webmail based on the Zimbra e-mail platform.

Read all about the service on the MacMedics website.