Potential Password Breach? Your Response Won’t Stop With One Account

You've heard reports that your social or professional networking service provider's systems or your e-mail service provider's systems may have had a security breach allowing hackers to see your password.

What do you do? You might change your password for that account, right? Sure, but you probably won't be able to stop there if you want to protect yourself. You need to develop a more complete response. First, you need to map the extent of the risk. Here are a few ideas:

1. Make a list of all accounts where you use the same User ID as the potentially compromised account. If you are very active on-line, this could be a very long list. Quite often your e-mail address will be your user ID for multiple accounts. For example, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, online shopping accounts, professional association websites, online access to employment benefits providers, and applications at the office might use the same email address as the User ID for the application. If you ever