Lesson Learned from MySpace, LinkedIn and Tumblr Hacks
Netflix and Facebook recently forced reset certain accounts due to the MySpace, LinkedIn and Tumblr hacks, and that it was found that users were using the same passwords everywhere. The big gorilla-in-the-room-lesson-learned here: don’t re-use passwords.
I get it, manually remembering a million different passwords is a pain, so naturally remembering one password, even if it’s a really strong one, may sound like the next best thing. But it’s not, in fact it’s probably the worst thing you could do and here’s a really simple reason why.
When hackers get hold of passwords they’ve stolen, as they did with the MySpace, LinkedIn and Tumblr hack, often the first thing they do is try those passwords on other sites, especially financial sites. If you’ve used the same password across all the sites you use, that means those hackers essentially can now access all of your accounts.
Even if you use a single password for one type of sites (like financials, social networking) and another for another type of sites, don’t do it. Make sure all your passwords are unique. If you want an app to easily remember all those passwords, check out 1Password.
–Kevin