WARNING: THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED
The web is glutted with social networking sites, blogs, email clients, discussion boards, and a vast array of other professional and recreational tools. For every one of these, there are a thousand hackers, scammers, and pranksters willing to take advantage of their vulnerabilities. Therefore, with each Internet community you join, security becomes exponentially more important. Username and password diversity are two of the most simple yet crucial precautions you can take in order to secure your online (and real-world) identity. Anybody with access to something as trivial and easy to obtain as your instant messaging password could hold the key to your email, university, and online banking accounts. Be proactive and prepare unique name/password combinations for each of your online profiles, change passwords frequently, and report any suspicious activity immediately. It may seem like a pain, but it isn't so rough when you consider the alternative - possible social and economic ruin. Play it safe, people!
Labels: hackers, passwords, scammers, security, social networking
Posted by Brian on 10/24/2008 02:48:00 PM
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1 Comments:
I cannot agree more with your suggestion to mix up usernames and passwords. I have unfortunately experienced the sting of an account being hacked into, because I used to have the same password for all of my personal accounts. If I had been smarter about protecting my privacy when I was younger, I may have been able to avoid the repercussions later on in life.
It is better to be safe than sorry and I hope that the millions of internet users that create new accounts everyday take that into consideration. Diversity among account names and passwords can surely save consumers the time and frustration of having to switch everything over to all new addresses and usernames!