Could Google be used to crack your online passwords?
Thursday, December 6th, 2007An article by Wendy M. Grossman in The Guardian today suggests this is a real possibility and offers some sound advice on choosing safer passwords:
Just as you hit the button to pay for your online purchase it happens: “First, create a username and password.”
The temptation is to pick something easy: your name, your spouse’s name, or a standard password you use everywhere. But if the site will store your credit card details, or is one you use for banking or trading shares, think more carefully.
Passwords are a perennial problem. They’re hard to think up, to remember and protect. Worse, they’re not in themselves secure - your data depends on the carefulness of many strangers. The security of the HMRC discs with the Child Benefit database lost some weeks ago - Zip-encrypted with a password - depends on the strength of that password.
Since Zip encryption uses the AES method, which the US deems good enough for officially secret documents, the HMRC files should be safe from a “brute force” attack. But other password encryption is threatened in quite a different way. Read full article here…
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