Here at Computer Geeks we see it happen all the time. People call in asking for help recovering their email or even their log-in so they can access the computer, because the evil hacker guessed “monkey” and got it right. Stop these weasels before they really do some damage to your email or computer.
A computer security company called Duo Security ran a decryption of hundreds of thousands of passwords and was able to crack everyone of them, simply because they were “weak”. A weak password contains only letters and numbers, sure mixing them up with alphanumerals is good, but not enough.
Passwords seem like something to get it out of the way so you can sign up or log in fast. This attitude can prove to be fatal, as hackers can just as easily decrypt passwords like Duo did, but with evil intentions reek havoc on your personal files.
Some of the accounts that Duo cracked into were from federal and state government agencies, with employees providing weak passwords, anyone with a knowledge of hacking could have access to confidential information that is very valuable. If you think your email was one of the ones tested, go to this?Web-based tool to find out just type in your email address.
Personally I used to just put in a funny name or something relevant to my life that I could remember. I learned quickly that it is not what I can remember, but what someone who wants to access my files remembers. Now I am being safe by using letters, a symbol or two, and a number. This is the safest bet to ensure that hackers will at least have a harder time trying to get in.
The most common ways of hackers is to guess:
- the user’s name or?login name
- the name of a?significant other, a friend, relative or pet
- birthplace or?date of birth, or a friend’s, or a relative’s
- automobile license plate number, or a friend’s, or a relative’s
- office number, residence number or most commonly, their mobile number.
- a name of a?celebrity they like
- a simple modification of one of the preceding, such as suffixing a digit, particularly?1, or reversing the order of the letters.
- a swear or curse word
If you use the last one on this list, you might as well deserve to be hacked into and destroyed. But for the rest of you out there enjoying the a small sense of security when you login to accounts such as PayPal, online banking, or online stores with saved credit card information, it is time to open your eyes to the big picture. You know, the one where you are hiding in the corner because all your information was hacked into and used to buy all sorts of lewd and unexplainable items. This is something you could have avoided if you had heeded the advice given at Computer Geeks Blogs and changed the password to something like: ilovegeeks@123
It can’t hurt, but it will if you are not smart and leave the password at: “iamamonkey”
