When Internet hackers broke into the snarky Gawker family of blogs recently, the most common passwords they revealed were, not surprisingly, “123456” and the classic, “password.”
Geek scolds — like dentists who don’t understand why we don’t floss thrice daily or English teachers who warn us about ending a sentence in a preposition — tell us of the ruin we are leading ourselves to.
Simple is stupid. Instead, make your passwords complicated. Don’t pick them from the dictionary. Use upper case and lower case, letters and numbers and symbols. And don’t use the same password everywhere, maybe not even twice.
The hack of Gawker’s network last weekend released millions of e-mail addresses, usernames and passwords into the wild. It’s not clear who the hackers are, or whether they were motivated by pride in their computer skills or animosity at something the technology- and media-focused blogs published.
Still, the damage is clear. Because so many people often use the same identities and passwords everywhere — it’s far easier than keeping track of multiple secret codes — Gawker joined security experts this week in urging people hit by the attack to change their check-ins for other sites.
Read the complete story at kansascity.com