Before I get into today’s topic, I will just do a bit of housekeeping. I want to let you all know that the contents of this blog are purely my own opinions, views and ideas, though these have come from a lot of study and research (and experience!). Secondly, I am in no way linked to, or receive money or products from any brand names or companies.
Just to add a quick piece to the Facebook scam in the last post: The computer doesn’t need to shut down, the link may just open another page, if it is a link for a video and it opens a page, this is usually a sure sign that it is a scam.
Okay,
A topic that nearly everybody I talk to who isn’t tech minded laughs off, is Passwords. That word that strikes frustration in the minds of even the most organised amongst us. I have helped a lot of family and friends where I have needed to know their password for the task, and have received the usual names of kids, dogs, husbands, wives etc, I even got the reply abc 123 once. I have learned over time to pick my battles, some people refuse to be educated on the topic, while most know they should be, but don’t bother. The funny thing is, the same people would not leave their house or car left unlocked, To be honest I would rather have my car stolen, than have my information and personal details stolen, at least our cars are insured!.
While simple passwords may be easy to remember and quick to login with, they are an open invitation and a ticking time bomb to having your accounts compromised. Here is some figures on what is termed a “Brute Force” attack, this is when a computer has a database of 100s of 1000s of possible password combinations, and a program is run that can try every password in a matter of seconds. The average computer that we all work with today has the power to easily run up to 500000 combinations a SECOND, and no I didn’t add too many zeros. To put that into plain English Most of the passwords that you are using would be cracked in less than 1 second.
You may be thinking: well this is all Hollywood Russian spy type stuff, Wrong!!! The age of technology we are in, has produced its own generation of “script Kiddies” young kids that do this kind of stuff just because!. There are also groups that “harvest” personal information and then sell it on to the bigger fish who then do the damage. Massive Databases of passwords and the programs to run them are easily found via a Google search and easily downloaded. Once someone has retrieved one of your passwords, they will then try it on other accounts that they’ve discovered you have, hence the reason to have different passwords for different accounts.
I know what you are all thinking, what a massive pain, how would I ever manage that? Well don’t panic, there are ways where it is quite easy to make hard to crack passwords for each account you have.
Another myth that Hollywood has taught us, is that passwords are cracked 1 letter at a time, and they get closer and closer the more letters that are discovered. This is not true at all, the only information a hacker knows is “it worked” or “it didn’t work”. You will see why this matters over the next few posts where I will be discussing what makes a secure password and how to easily make them unique for each account.
Just to add a quick piece to the Facebook scam in the last post: The computer doesn’t need to shut down, the link may just open another page, if it is a link for a video and it opens a page, this is usually a sure sign that it is a scam.
Okay,
A topic that nearly everybody I talk to who isn’t tech minded laughs off, is Passwords. That word that strikes frustration in the minds of even the most organised amongst us. I have helped a lot of family and friends where I have needed to know their password for the task, and have received the usual names of kids, dogs, husbands, wives etc, I even got the reply abc 123 once. I have learned over time to pick my battles, some people refuse to be educated on the topic, while most know they should be, but don’t bother. The funny thing is, the same people would not leave their house or car left unlocked, To be honest I would rather have my car stolen, than have my information and personal details stolen, at least our cars are insured!.
While simple passwords may be easy to remember and quick to login with, they are an open invitation and a ticking time bomb to having your accounts compromised. Here is some figures on what is termed a “Brute Force” attack, this is when a computer has a database of 100s of 1000s of possible password combinations, and a program is run that can try every password in a matter of seconds. The average computer that we all work with today has the power to easily run up to 500000 combinations a SECOND, and no I didn’t add too many zeros. To put that into plain English Most of the passwords that you are using would be cracked in less than 1 second.
You may be thinking: well this is all Hollywood Russian spy type stuff, Wrong!!! The age of technology we are in, has produced its own generation of “script Kiddies” young kids that do this kind of stuff just because!. There are also groups that “harvest” personal information and then sell it on to the bigger fish who then do the damage. Massive Databases of passwords and the programs to run them are easily found via a Google search and easily downloaded. Once someone has retrieved one of your passwords, they will then try it on other accounts that they’ve discovered you have, hence the reason to have different passwords for different accounts.
I know what you are all thinking, what a massive pain, how would I ever manage that? Well don’t panic, there are ways where it is quite easy to make hard to crack passwords for each account you have.
Another myth that Hollywood has taught us, is that passwords are cracked 1 letter at a time, and they get closer and closer the more letters that are discovered. This is not true at all, the only information a hacker knows is “it worked” or “it didn’t work”. You will see why this matters over the next few posts where I will be discussing what makes a secure password and how to easily make them unique for each account.
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