Security

Have You Changed Your Password Recently?

It’s time for yet another reminder why you should use strong passwords, and change them frequently. Today it was reported that LinkedIn.com, a popular professional networking site, was compromised, leaking over 6 million user passwords. This is not a new phenomenon, and we’ve seen it plenty of times before. Despite this, users never seem to learn that using the same password at multiple locations is a very, very bad practice. It’s even worse if you use the same username, read “email address,” at these sites.

For instance, if you are on Facebook, LinkedIn, LifeHacker, Yahoo, and Bank of America, and you use your email address (your Yahoo! Mail address) to identify yourself to all of these sites, and you use the same password on each of these sites, then anyone who cracks one of these sites has cracked your account on all of them.

That’s right – this is how my getting your LinkedIn password just got me into your bank account.

Take a few minutes (really – just a few minutes) to protect yourself and read this post on passwords. You’ll thank me later.

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