The Aftermath Of A Password Hack

A former colleague of mine emailed me the other day to catch up on life and just chew the fat. He mentioned that someone hacked into his Hotmail account and deleted some important information... but I'm sure he stole the vital information before the big deletion. And I'm talking social security number, a couple of credit card numbers and passwords, and most importantly, his freakin' address. He's paranoid now and looking to get a cctv surveillance system for his property. The house alarm's already installed... at least he's got that covered.

I had to say he had it coming. One thing you definitely do not do is keep sensitive information like that in an email account. Hotmail is not a safe. Yahoo mail is not Fort Knox. If you're in business, especially for yourself, you need to clean out your email account of any private or business data that can hurt you and your clients later on. I mean it's only common sense. He told me he was going to get around to it but had no time. Well, I guess he's going to make time now.

He's going to make time to research what is good password practice. His password was common, connected him to it and was most likely brute forced because the words in his password were commonly found in a dictionary. Do your own research and be safe.

I found some good information here that gives you the do's and dont's. You can learn about what programs people use to bypass passwords as well. It pays to educate yourself. If you need high security passwords, especially for wireless networks, go here.

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