- This topic has 2 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated August 21, 2013 at 6:23 pm by
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Someone hacked my yahoo email (for the second time). I think we’ve fixed the problem, but if you got any weird spam from me, I’m sorry. It wasn’t me.
–JuneI hope by now most people understand these things happen. When they do, I at least don’t blame the nominal “sender”, although I confess to sending a few dark thoughts in the direction of whoever did the hacking.
On a more practical note, as someone who pays a good deal of attention to the topic of computer security, after an incident like this, it is always good pracitice to, first, as soon as possible, change all your passwords even if you are sure they “couldn’t” have been compromised. You’d be shocked how some of these operations are able to piece together bits of information they harvest from your saved e-mails, from whatever their algorithms can learn about your user name, password, and security question preferences, etc. (This is one reason people like this annoy me so much; they cause an inordinate amount of inconvenience.) Then, it is still a good idea to keep a sharp eye on all your online accounts that matter to you for a period of two years. Yes, I’m serious.
Data 18 months old and more has been found for sale on “dark” servers. (Oh, yes. You should also go through all your saved e-mails. You must assume they have all that data – any halfway competent operator could harvest it all once they cracked your account in a matter of an hour or two – and that’s assuming you have at least 1-2 GB of data in there. And they have all the data they can piece together from assembling all that data. See why I hate them?)Oh, and I hate to be the one to break this news (if I am), but the need for strong passwords is greater than ever. A few years ago, I was proud because I’d set up passwords that were in effect unbreakable (that is, any password can be cracked in theory, but as long as mine required ‘too much’ work to break, the bad guys would move on to someone easier). Now, because the rainbow tables and other tools these people rely on have improved so much, those incredibly strong passwords are now barely adequate. If there weren’t so many people still out there using totally inadequate ones, I’d be in huge trouble. Passphrases you can remember are now completely unsafe (and I have a far better memory than most) and if you don’t have to use a password manager to keep track of everything, you might as well just use “password” everywhere and keep it simple. (The scary part is, some people still do just that…)
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