article thumbnail

GUEST ESSAY: Until we eliminate passwords, follow these 4 sure steps to password hygiene

The Last Watchdog

Until biometrics or a quantum solution change our everyday approach to encryption, passwords remain our first line of defense against data breaches, hackers, and thieves. Proper password hygiene doesn’t require a degree in rocket science. 1) Create sufficiently-complex passwords. But simpler passwords are much easier to hack.

Passwords 244
article thumbnail

When Accounts are "Hacked" Due to Poor Passwords, Victims Must Share the Blame

Troy Hunt

The first one was about HSBC disclosing a "security incident" which, upon closer inspection, boiled down to this: The security incident that HSBC described in its letter seems to fit the characteristics of brute-force password-guessing attempts, also known as a credentials stuffing attack.

Passwords 234
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Relax. Internet password books are OK

Malwarebytes

Passwords are a hot topic on social media at the moment, due to the re-emergence of a discussion about good password management practices. There’s a wealth of password management options available, some more desirable than others. Others involve syncing passwords with services such as Dropbox. The big book of passwords.

Passwords 142
article thumbnail

The 773 Million Record "Collection #1" Data Breach

Troy Hunt

Collection #1 is a set of email addresses and passwords totalling 2,692,818,238 rows. In total, there are 1,160,253,228 unique combinations of email addresses and passwords. This is when treating the password as case sensitive but the email address as not case sensitive. There are 21,222,975 unique passwords. It'll be 99.x%

article thumbnail

No, Spotify Wasn't Hacked

Troy Hunt

Very often, those addresses are accompanied by other personal information such as passwords. No, and the passwords are the very first thing that starts to give it all away. The attack is simple but effective due to the prevalence of password reuse. Clearly a Spotify breach, right? Billions of them, in some cases.

Hacking 221
article thumbnail

NY Man Pleads Guilty in $20 Million SIM Swap Theft

Krebs on Security

Unauthorized SIM swaps often are perpetrated by fraudsters who have already stolen or phished a target’s password, as many financial institutions and online services rely on text messages to send users a one-time code for multi-factor authentication. Reached for comment, Terpin said his assailant got off easy.

article thumbnail

The Data Breach "Personal Stash" Ecosystem

Troy Hunt

For example, here's Jordan's go at deflecting his role in the ecosystem and yes, this was the entire terms of service: I particularly like this clause: You may only use this tool for your own personal security and data research. You may only search information about yourself, or those you are authorized in writing to do so.