If you use a web-based email service, odds are you’re using Gmail, Yahoo or maybe even Hotmail. But if you’re still using Hotmail, it may be time to make the switch. Hotmail’s security features aren’t keeping pace with those of its online competitors.

Both Yahoo and Gmail offer users fairly simple ways to see if their account is being accessed by someone else. By checking the time of last log-in (and a list of IP addresses for the more tech savvy) account holders can be tipped off to suspicious activity. Unfortunately, as Sophos points out, Hotmail doesn’t have this feature.

According to the Sophos article, Hotmail does track IP address and access times, it just doesn’t make that information available to its users.

Contacts in law enforcement tell me that Hotmail *does* store the activity information, and it can be extracted from them (with proper legal paperwork) if a criminal investigation is taking place.. but that’s not much consolation for a battered wife who’s petrified that her partner is secretly reading her email. Or someone who is worried that they might have been hacked.

Read the full article and find out how to view your email-access history at Sophos >>>