It is that time of year and I am not talking about the changes in the weather!
Time to sit yourself in front of the nice warm PC and change your passwords – yep, again! CNN Money reports that 2 million usernames and passwords have been compromised since October 21st. The types of accounts include Facebook, Gmail, Yahoo, Twitter and Linked-In. Though the compromise was discovered on November 24th the report was not released until December 4, 2013.
EPCOR’s News You Can Use featured an article in “From the Fraud Desk” with some suggestions on creating stronger passwords. A few password reminders:
- Don’t use words found in the dictionary
- Don‘t use personal information like spouse, children or pet names
- The longer passwords the better (phrases or acronym are best)
- Add numbers and special symbols as allowed
- Something you can remember
- Don’t create a password document
- Don’t write passwords down and leave them on your computer
- Change passwords on a regular basis (even if the site has not discovered a compromise)
I encourage you to check out the stolen passwords article and at a minimum change passwords for accounts with any of the site’s that have been compromised.
Happy Changes to You!