When I read the article about China hackers attacking Gmail accounts in Flyer News' January 26 issue, it struck a personal note with me.

  I don't use Gmail for my personal e-mail account, and, thankfully, I've never had my e-mail account hacked. However, about a year ago, my mother's account on Hotmail was hacked.

  She had gotten some response e-mails from some of her friends about strange e-mails they'd received from her on rather weird subjects (something about getting cheap prescription drugs).

  When she investigated the activity, it turned out that someone from China had managed to hack into her e-mail. Fortunately, she was able to remedy the situation, quickly regaining control of her account.

  Since that incident, she and I both take greater measures to protect our e-mail accounts.

  The one piece of advice that I would like to give is that many e-mail service providers (like Yahoo! and MSN) offer methods to help increase the security of your e-mail account.

  For example, I have it set that my MSN e-mail's password expires every 72 days, requiring me to change it fairly often. Also, when I set up my new password, MSN has a password strength gauge that measures the strength of my password, letting me know whether it might be easy for someone to hack my e-mail.

Features like these have helped me keep my e-mail account secure, and they can definitely help other people keep their accounts secure, too.

Finally, I'd just like to thank Flyer News for putting this article in their latest issue. Cyber-security is one of the greatest issues we face in society today, and we need to know how to protect ourselves against the faceless threats to our safety.