Did you change all your passwords yet? It’s been almost a week since we learned that a Russian cyber gang injected a malicious code into at least 420,000 websites to steal as many as 1.2 billion username and password combinations. That’s 1.2 billion, with a B. Scary stuff, huh? “Initially, the gang acquired databases of stolen credentials from fellow hackers on the black market,” states a press release from Hold Security, LLC, a Milwaukee-based information security, assessment and incident response company. “These databases were used to attack email providers, social media and other websites to distribute spam to victims and install malicious redirections on legitimate systems,” the company states. Security experts and federal officials immediately urged Americans to change their passwords for all of our accounts while reminding us not to duplicate passwords on multiple sites. And also to be more vigilant with online transactions, purchases and accounting. So, I ask again, did you change your usernames and passwords? Yeah, neither did I. But I made a promise to myself to change them all, yet again, soon. Very soon. This week. It’s written in my daily planner. Promise. Trouble is, I really like my current passwords. They’re finally easy to remember. They’re difficult to crack. They’re, well, MY passwords. And I’ve got plenty of them, each one for a different account, which took me months to memorize. Problem is, experts say, too many of us use the same passwords for multiple sites. I’m guilty here, too. “Let’s face it: Almost everyone reuses their passwords,” the Hold Security site states. Doing such a thing can ripple into an international catastrophe after such a large-scale cyber breach by that Russian gang. (Maybe it’s my age, but doesn’t “Russian gang” sound even more notorious than other gangs?) Alex Holden, Hold Security’s founder and chief information security officer, told media outlets, “The last thing we want is to panic the marketplace.” Many of those heisted passwords could have been outdated or unused, he noted. Yeah, they could have been. But how would we know for sure? We don’t. Not really. Such things are a 21st century mystery to most every Internet user, even those of us who pride ourselves on “being vigilant” regarding our passwords, usernames and cyber security. Potential victims can check HoldSecurity to see if their email addresses were stolen or compromised. I visited the site and noticed that the company also is hanging out a cyber shingle for its new “breach notification service,” for “as low as $120 a year.” Ah, how convenient. How timely. How American. There is another, cheaper way to help safeguard your passwords. Change them. Now. And regularly. Forever. Until death do you part. I learned, though, that too many of us are as lazy with creating passwords as we are with exercising on a regular basis or watching our weight. Even our intelligence is getting flabby and slothful. How American indeed. Take a look at the top 10 most commonly used passwords by consumers: 1. 123456 2. password 3. 12345678 4. qwerty 5. abc123 6. 123456789 7. 111111 8. 1234567 9. iloveyou 10. adobe123 It’s as though they were imagined by toddlers or people suffering from dementia. They’re practically asking for their accounts to be hacked. Although security experts repeatedly offer us tips — create longer passwords; don’t use the same password for social media and for banking; mix it up with uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and characters — we typically ignore their advice. “Nobody will ever guess 1-2-3-4-A-B-C-D,” we boast to our spouse. Ugh. Some of my passwords have been so complex I’ve had to write them down and use a cheat sheet for reminders. Others have been so simple I can’t believe the website didn’t kick me off and laugh at me. Two of my favorite and most effective passwords came from IT personnel at my job, whose expertise I trusted. They’re long gone but their password suggestions live on. Not for long, however. After this latest cyber breach, I’m changing all my usernames and passwords. Email accounts, banking sites, credit cards, social media, stores, Amazon, PayPal, you name it. As soon as I find all my cheat sheets. Probably tomorrow. I promise. You too?
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:23:19 +0000
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