If you have a computer account for work, you probably have to change your password between every 30 and 60 days. Some places have more stringent rules, others a little less, but this is typical. So, do you, as an average Internet user, need to follow those same (annoying) guidelines? Well, looking at the answer, […]
A recent (in the last 6 months or so) scam that has been showing up with a lot more frequency is an email scam about some “hacker” who has gotten your “password.” If you’ve gotten this, you probably freaked out at first. So first things first, there is a 99.99999% chance this is a total […]
Calculating your password strength is fairly simple mathematically. Take the number of characters to choose from (26 for just lower case letters, 52 for upper and lower case letters, etc) and raise it to the power of the number of characters in your password. For example PassWord would be 52 ^ 8. And while that […]
When hackers go on a “phishing trip” they are going out trying to get you to give them your username/password, and it all starts with an email. Now, of course, you’d never do that. You’re way to smart for that… aren’t you. A Phishing attempt however knows that you are smart, and will try to […]
Every year a new list of most common passwords is released. You might ask, “where do these come from?”, and that’s a great question. Security firms scour the dark parts of the Internet to find people buying and selling passwords. Based upon these lists, they find the passwords and start organizing them by the number […]
Simply put: a password manager is an application which you can use to track your usernames and passwords. The data will be stored encrypted and you will have to provide a master password (usually) to access your passwords. Here you can list what server you use them on, the username, the password, and often add […]
Remembering a password is difficult now a days. Gone are the days of only having to have upper case and lower case letters. Now they seem to want numbers, emojis, and the DNA of a unicorn… OK, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but it doesn’t seem by much. So how do you remember […]
Imagine you log into your Facebook or Instagram account and find that it’s been hacked. Someone learned of your password, and now they have access. Luckily, aside from a few embarrassing posts, there’s not much wrong there. You delete the posts, make a few mea culpas, and people forget about it after a few weeks. […]
A dictionary attack is used by hackers by trying potential passwords from a prearranged list or lists of words and/or known passwords. Typically these lists are derived from a list of common words found in a dictionary (hence the phrase dictionary attack), a list of common non-word passwords (like qwerty, 123456, etc) or a common […]
Hackers, scammers, and others are constantly looking for your email and/or password hoping to use it for their own nefarious schemes. While there are groups who will actively try to hack your account, there are others who are just as happy to buy or trade for your account details on various forums. Luckily there are […]