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You are here: Home / Observations / The importance of being obscurest

The importance of being obscurest

Published January 5, 2009 by lawsie Leave a Comment

Last Updated on February 18, 2023

It has recently come to our attention that spammers and ner do wells appear to have a new weapon in their arsenal of malevolence. Previously in order to hack email accounts criminals would look for an obvious association with the person they were trying to hack, we are aware of people using the names of their children and pets as passwords on sites like PayPal or Ebay only to find out just how vulnerable they were making themselves to attack. These cyber-miscreants now appear to be able to try and break into accounts by trying huge lists of every day words, and even the names of celebrities!

Before we proceed I want to make it clear that none of my clients have had any service I provide compromised, this is just a general (and hopefully helpful) email to keep you all on your toes!

What makes a good password –

* Using both numbers and letters
e.g. slartybartfast80643
* Making up nonsense words to use
e.g. scromblofying
* Using numbers as letters in words
e.g. ‘he11o’
* Using special characters in words
e.g. ‘st@rw@r5’

Related from lawsie.com

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  • Rogue anti-virus software – malware warning!
  • Why do I have to copy weird text from a box when filling in a form on a website?
  • Do missing emails go to the same place as odd socks?
  • How I was hacked, and how justice was done.

Filed Under: Observations Tagged With: passwords

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