Account security tips & best practices

We know that staying on top of online security can be challenging, so we’ve put together our top tips for you to keep your account safe. While these tips are here to help you retain account and data security, this is by no means an exhaustive list. Fraudsters are increasingly sophisticated in their attempts to gain access to information, so it’s important to always be vigilant about what information you share, with whom, and through what platform. When in doubt, take additional steps to contact companies directly and confirm requests or outreach before clicking on a link or sharing information.

Password Security

Maintaining good password habits can be hard. There are many sites, accounts, and places on the internet you use every day, and each demands their own password. It can be easy to reuse the same password over and over, but this can jeopardize the security of your accounts as popular sites experience security breaches. If a malicious actor gets access to your email or username and password for one site, they may try to use your credentials on many other sites. The best way to avoid damage to your information and your identity is to ensure your passwords are always unique. Don’t share your passwords with others; sharing your account or password can put you at risk.

When it comes to choosing a password, security professionals advise against using a word as your password, but instead suggest turning a phrase that is easy for you to remember into a password. Such as “I drink unicorn soda in Arizona” (but don’t use that one).

If you would rather have an app figure all this out for you, there are many great free and paid password management products available today. Remembering a password for each of the dozens of sites you use every day can be an impossible task, but a password manager easily remembers all of your credentials for you. If you decide to use a password management product, keep it secure with a long, complex password.

Email Phishing

Udemy Support and other Udemy teams will only contact you via the email address associated with your account. All messages from Udemy will come from an email address with the official Udemy domain; this includes [email protected] and [email protected]. If you receive other types of messages from anyone claiming to be Udemy, don’t click any links in their email or direct message.

If you are contacted by a suspicious party, ignore all instructions in the message and never download any attachments. These kinds of messages will often try to scare their victims into thinking they need to take immediate action. When in doubt with any unsolicited message, start a new correspondence with our support team, [email protected], to verify the message. If possible, don’t immediately delete the suspicious email, as the email headers can be useful for tracking the party responsible for the phishing message.

Account updates & financial information

If you are contacted by Udemy asking you to share or update your personal or financial information, please escalate the request directly to the support team at Udemy. If you have concerns, please ignore the suspicious message, and write a new email to our support team at [email protected]. If you are afraid you have shared information with an unauthorized third party, immediately reach out to the support team. They are the best equipped to help you curb any damage.

Unsolicited contacts

We know that launching a new course can be hard and that building an audience from scratch takes a large amount of work. If someone reaches out to you offering to market your course, be careful. Please make sure to thoroughly vet any potential business partners or co-instructors. When in doubt, check the instructor community for marketing and course launch best practices. Your peers can be a great asset to learn how to effectively build an audience from scratch

Reporting issues

As always, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is! If you suspect that you have received a phishing email or may have been the victim of an attempted hack, please reach out to our team at [email protected]. We are more than happy to look into anything suspicious.