Basic Security

It doesn’t matter how “good” the password is, it only takes one site to get hacked to have all your sites compromised. You can check your email address against a breached account database here: Have I Been Pwned.

If you find your email address on there, don't panic! Read the description of the breach. Look for the "Compromised Data" section on that breach.

If it is a service you've signed up for, you will certainly want to change your password, which won't be too hard with a password manager (see below for information about password manager systems.)

If you do open them, make sure that your mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Apple Mail, etc) does not load images. Images and various attachments can sometimes be executed as programs without the recipient knowing. This is a good reason to have your computer scanned regularly.

Some good password managers are Enpass, BitWarden, and 1Password. Some services are free and others have a small monthly fee.

There are many options for antivirus programs and systems, including: Windows Defender (Built into Windows), MalwareBytes, Sophos, Avast, Norton, McAfee.

If you have a Comcast/Xfinity ISP account, you can get Norton for free. If you have an AT&T account, you can get McAfee for free.

Avoid such sites (pornography, pirating services, free product offers) as websites in that space typically have more malware embedded.

On our end, we already enforce a strong security policy for email addresses, but that doesn’t prevent you from using the same password across multiple sites, so please don’t do this. Also, we ask that you don't use a dictionary word in your password, this makes it much easier to guess what the password is and makes your email account much less secure. If you wish to change your PD/GO email account's password, you can do so here:

Mail Account Settings

Log in with your email address and current password, and then make sure to update it in whatever mail client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Apple Mail, etc) you currently use.