Another weekend, another massive data breach. This time it was real estate insurance giant First American Financial, which according to the KrebsOnSecurity security news site, exposed…
Another weekend, another massive data breach. This time it was real estate insurance giant First American Financial, which according to the KrebsOnSecurity security news site, exposed over 800 million sensitive records because of a bug in its website.
You may be affected or not. Either way, it’s time to get busy and update your digital life, with new passwords, a password manager and two-factor authentication.
The most common password used, even to this day, is «password» and 123456. Security experts recommend a strong mix of letters, numbers and symbols, preferably ones that make no sense, says Emmanual Schalit, the founder of Dashlane, a popular password manager, which automatically generates tough ones. (Dashlane is free on one device, or $59.99 yearly on multiple devices.)
Having the same password on multiple sites is like «giving the keys to your home to everyone who delivers a package,» he says. «If you share the same password to multiple sites, when one becomes breached, the hacker will use the same password to all your websites.»
Schalit joined us on the #TalkingTech podcast to talk all things passwords, and how in a perfect world, he’d like to see them changed every five minutes or so. (Relax — he actually changes his every three months, using an automated feature of the Dashlane app to create hard to crack passwords.)
Experts recommend a good strong password with capital and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols that are hard to crack. Don’t use your name, those of loved ones, your street address or anything else that could be easily looked up by a hacker online about you.
