You may have seen the recent news that a large security exploit has hit the web for web based email. Thousands of user’s passwords have been published online for services like Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Gmail and other email providers.
There is plenty of reading material online about where the passwords had been published and how the exploit may have happened. Silicon Republic published Webmail users neglect secure passwords and stated:
“The most popular password found from some of the 10,000 accounts published publicly was ‘123456’. Yes, ‘123456’; 64 people chose this as a password – a way of accessing an online email account containing private information that could be used for identity-theft”.
Surprisingly enough using these types of passwords isn’t something new and has always been a headache for IT admins who allow users select their own passwords.
There is plenty of advice out there on how you select/create your passwords.
One of Ireland’s leading security experts, Brian Honan, states on his blog:
“Make sure you do not use the same password across different systems because if your email password has been compromised then those other systems could be accessed by the criminals”.
Unfortunately it’s common for people to use the same password for everything as it’s easy to remember but as Brian pointed out your other accounts can also be compromised.
Microsoft have a good article on creating strong passwords and Google also provides some advice. The best advice is to stop thinking of them as passwords and start thinking of them as passphrases.
It might be a good time to start changing your online accounts just as a precaution, I know I have.
Related posts:
I have tried changing my password so I can keep it secret, only to have the thing saved!! I have choosen to not have it saved but it still saves it, now what? Diane
Hi Diane,
If you are using Internet Explorer and your passwords are being saved there are two things you can do.
1: Open Internet Explorer and click on Tools > Internet Options. Click on the Content Tab, look for the AutoComplete section and click on the Settings button. In here you will find a list of options that tells Internet Explorer what to save, look for the User names and passwords on forms option and make sure the box is unchecked. You can also find in here the option to delete the history that has been saved.
2: You can also delete browsing history in Internet Explorer by clicking on Tools > Delete Browsing History. In the pop-up box you can select all the information saved that you want to delete, including saved passwords.
I hope that helps and thanks for visiting.