Email Password Stealing Bastards!

[coop68]

For any of you who have had the pleasure of dealing with me by email from my coopoloop68 aol acount note someone hacked my account bastards [Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2][Rant2]

someone has been send crap out in my name that issent me so please add to spam folder and delate my contact! [Rant1]

People who steal email passwords and forwards crap to your contact list seriously need to get a real life and drive off a cliff, because no one likes you. That is all [Kick3]


and since when cant we add over 15 images of fun smiley's to a post come on mods! i don't like limits just kidding!

Rant over.

coop

[Big Wall]

Same thing happened to my wife and I. We just changed our password and haven't had a problem since. All of our contacts, including her professors, were sent cialis ads.

[Pancho Villa]

Your passwords should ideally be long phrases that you can easily remember.

ie "Speak friend and enter." period included. Studies have shown that longer passwords are more effective than shorter ones that are random jumblings of letters/numbers, and its way easier to remember a phrase than it is a collection of characters.

[Irving]

How do you even say "friend" in dwarf?

[Hoosier]

For anyone using GMail and possessing a smart phone (android, iphone) you can enable two factor authentication for free. This is a huge boost to your account security. Email is the gateway to all your other accounts, through "Forgotten Password" links. If your account gets hacked, check all your account settings, they may still be forwarding a copy of all your mail out of your account.

Remember to never use the same password on more than one site!

H.

[Byte Stryke]

ie "Speak friend and enter."

there ya go again...

despising you a little less each day


[LOL]

[ldmaster]

That we're NOT getting married and merging our gun collections together in a spectacular display of brotherly love?

I knew it was wrong... but the temptation was too great...

[Ed_S]

Happened to me and multiple emails got sent to all my contacts, links to porno and adult dating sites.

My contacts also included all my kids teachers! Spent 1/2 day apologizing to them, fortunately they thought it was funny.

[Storm]

Your passwords should ideally be long phrases that you can easily remember.

ie "Speak friend and enter." period included. Studies have shown that longer passwords are more effective than shorter ones that are random jumblings of letters/numbers, and its way easier to remember a phrase than it is a collection of characters.

Using actual words is a bad idea, especially if it'a a phrase from a book or common language. These are susceptible to dictionary attacks. The best passwords should look like a random string of letters, numbers and if possible non-alphnumeric characters. Phrase abbreviations will work if they are not common (like TGIF).

[ChunkyMonkey]

I tipe leek muy accent - no wui 2 gas mai pass

[theGinsue]

15 years Computer Security exerience
CompTia Security + certified
More training in creating/applying the proper pssword strategies than you'd think anyone should ever have to go through

I still had my main eMail password @ just 7 digits (I did employ the other techniques though - except changing it regularly) - got hacked lass September. Changed it right away. Verified noone was forwarding from my account and apparently caught it before anything was sent from the account. Still sucks. Took me 5 months to finally stop typig that old password first when logging in.

I feel for you.

Now, I'm using the whole 14 character minimum, 2 upercase characters, 2 lowercase characters, 2 numerics and 2 special characters - minimum and changing often (not every 60 days like I should though).

Ticks me off that I have to go through such a hassle because someone feels entitled to stealing what I've earned. (the respect of my Contacts among this)

[Hoosier]

eMail password @ just 7 digits (I did employ the other techniques though - except changing it regularly) - got hacked

Did you use the password anywhere else, or did they have to brute force it?

Am I the only one using Gmail two factor? It should pretty reliably prevent the Chinese attack that many people are getting hacked from.

H.

[Byte Stryke]

64 Character passwords using the Swahili and Russian Alphabet paired with 256 bit encryption.

[blacklabel]

Am I the only one using Gmail two factor?

I use it and love it. Definitely one of the smartest things that Google has done.

I also don't have any passwords that are duplicated. Everything is unique and as random as possible.

[Zundfolge]

I've been using this password generator (http://www.angel.net/%7Enic/passwd.html) to create passwords that are unique and random looking but that I can easily replicate if I forget them (I also saved a copy of that page locally just in case it ever disappears from the net).

Basically you use a master password that is easy for you to remember, then you input the URL of the site (like www.co-ar15.com (http://www.co-ar15.com) for example) and it generates a funky random looking password for you to use for that site. Since it uses a consistent algorithm to create the passwords, when you forget your password (because you will) you can go back to that site and re-enter your master password and url and there's the password you forgot.


Another option for password security is this thing (http://www.passwordcard.org/en).

[streetglideok]

My old aol account that I only use for facebook was hacked. I recieved a spam email from it to my yahoo account this am. Ugh. Had to go in and do some cleaning of my contacts and change my password.

[Zundfolge]

Some of you kids may be using LastPass, but since they store your passwords on THEIR servers (and their severs may have been hacked recently) I wouldn't recommend them.

However a similar type program is KeePass (http://keepass.info/) (which is available for most platforms).

There was a good article on this subject on Lifehacker today. (http://lifehacker.com/5799036/the-best-password-utilities-that-dont-store-your-data-in-the-cloud)

[CrufflerSteve]

Be careful with gmail. I currently use that for all my accounts but I'm wondering about backup accounts with other providers. Also about backing upmy data. Some of the hacking victims have been reporting losing all their email & contacts and it turns out google isn't that great at storing it for the free people. People with commercial accounts with them have better recovery.

Steve