WARNING:

 

Are your account details up to date?

 

If you use a Microsoft account, Hotmail/Outlook account, Gmail account, or any account for that matter, this is a reminder to keep your security details up to date for recovery purposes.

Sometimes these accounts will ask for verification routinely, or to be able to access confidential information within your account. If your phone number or secondary email address is not kept up to date, you could be denied access to your account, and sometimes this is the end of the road.

In some situations, this could put a computer out of action for a period of time.

Example:

‘Bitlocker’ is a feature of Microsoft Windows that allows you to encrypt the entire hard drive, making it unreadable should your laptop ever be stolen. Although this is enabled by the user normally or by the company you work for if it is within their policies, many claim that they have never enabled it and that the computer must have done it automatically. In this case, the user does not know the passkey that unlocks the hard drive. If the computer is linked to a Microsoft account, the recovery key to access the machine and the data on the hard drive is sometimes stored within that account. However, to access the key, you will need to verify you are who you say you are via your phone number on the account. If this is an old phone number that you no longer have access to, then you will not be able to retrieve the key should your computer ever ask for it. Goodbye data. Microsoft, however, will allow you to request to update the phone number on the account. Once changed, it can take up to 30 days for this change to be approved. Therefore, if your computer is asking for the Bitlocker recovery key when you turn it on, you could be locked out of it for up to a month before being able to check the Microsoft account for the required key.

 

In other situations, not having updated security details can make an account inaccessible and unrecoverable. Check your information and update it if necessary to avoid these consequences.