Pages

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

How secure is your password

This past week, this article flew by in a whir and was almost missed.  I'm a loyal macrumors reader, but sometimes I just breeze past the More MacRumors stories sidebar.  But this should have been bigger news.  Blizzard, producer of the worlds largest MMO, World of Warcraft, and owner of the Diablo and Starcraft franchise, so when they report that they've been hacked, its big news, well it is to me.  I try to be secure, so secure in fact that some of my passwords are 50 alpha-numeric characters long.  In addion to that, I use a program that I find invaluable, 1Password, it works for Windows and Mac and saves all your passwords and all you have to remember is 1 password (see what they did there).  It also has a password generator, and the really cool thing you can save your password list to your dropbox account and have access to it everywhere.  They also have and iOS app, which comes in handy if your passwords are too long to remember.  I think what scares me the most about the whole Blizzard thing, is that they offer a free app on Android and iOS, the Mobile Authenticator, which is very similar to the RSA security fobs most businesses use.  It generates a random number every 30 seconds or so, and if you have one tied to your account you cant login unless you know the code.  What's worse is WoW players (like me) get a lot of spam, and it all looks legit, they are trying hard to get your authenticator codes, to hack your account sell your stuff and use you as a gold farmer.  I know everyone hears this all the time, if you get an email from someone, whether you know them or not, DO NOT just start clicking on links all willy nilly.  I'm sure the surprised cat is cute, but do you really want to chance it?  And no, you did not do something unbeleiveable in a video on facebook or twitter, again DO NOT click on these links.  I will not fix your computer because you were stupid.  Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is, even in real life as well as virtual, a free tablet is never a free tablet...

Lastly, want to know how quick your password can be cracked, check out this little doozey of a website, kinda cool.

2 comments:

  1. We LOVE 1Password in this house. Without it I'd never be able to log into anything because I can never remember my passwords.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for link and RT, your the best!

    ReplyDelete