It’s good to have a strong password of course but that’s not how most of the “hacking”’is done these days (by cracking passwords). You’ll note for example in the latest buzz worthy story, celebrity iCloud pictures were “hacked” when the theives used intelligence and savvy to simply reset the iCloud password to their own. In other words they guessed the answers to the security questions associated to the accounts to gain entry to said accounts. Questions like “what’s your favorite color” or “your mother’s maiden name” have answers that through Facebook (or other public posts) or through public record searches, an enterprising hacker can guess rather easily.
These “security questions” are actually making online activity less secure ironically. Strong password creation (such as you posted) should be the norm and no way (or at least a very complicated way) to reset one’s password should be available. The “security questions” have been a step back in security.
“The “security questions” have been a step back in security.”
Amen! One our younger relatives is a genius in computer coding, language and other aspects of computer use.
Over a decade ago, he started warning all of us about password protection. He hated the so called security questions. He said most of us had one mother with only one surname, our birthday was unique to us and so was our first car and its color, the name of our first dog and so on. He knew that the stores that got this data sold it or had minimal onsite protection.
Then, he was warning not to put this data down for discount cards at Safeway, special deals from internet companies and any other company, including your insurance companies.
If I do fill out the requests, my birth date is 1/1/1900. My mother’s madian name was Claus, my grandfather’s first name Nick. My first dog’s name was Spot. My best friend was Adam.
Some companies like our insurance company gave me some grief until I told them I would go to Esurance if I had to deal with an online computer instead of a human and give up my vital personal data.