Protect your MyGov account against scammers!

Hi, it's Tori here. Overnight someone tried to hack my MyGov account. I received an email telling me I was locked out of my account.

Normally I'd ignore this type of email as spam, but this time I checked and found out I was locked out. Before just blindly sending the reset code to my mobile phone, I called the MyGov help line to see if they could protect me any better. After waiting on hold for more than 30 minutes (Grrr) the customer service operator first told me that there was nothing they could do from their end. Oh boy this frustrated me, considering the email I'd received suggested I call them, and all she told me was exactly what the first option in the email was – the second being to call them. Anyway, I explained that to her and she suggested that once I reset my login, that I log into MyGov, go to “My Account”, then “Account Settings”, then “Sign in Settings". Here, I should note down the MyGov username that has been generated by MyGov and use this in future to log in (This is what I already use, so at this point I was confused.). Then she said to scroll further and UNTICK the boxes next to my email address and my mobile number so that they could no longer be used to log in.

Well I never! I did not even know that it was possible to log in using my email address or mobile number, and did not know that my account allowed these options. So, I unticked those options, and clicked to update. Now, the only way someone can get into my MyGov account is to use the MyGov username (made up of two letters and six numbers) that no-one aside from me knows, AND have access to my mobile phone number. (This is the bit that can be cloned, apparently, just like a hacker may get access to your emails to obtain unlock codes.) 

So, moral of the story is – to make your MyGov account more secure, log in and change the settings so you can only log in with the special MyGov login, that only you and the Govt know. This is not guaranteed to be 100% scammer proof, but is much much more secure than using your email or mobile number to log in.