Gmail flaw shows value of strong passwords

[djbaxter]

Gmail flaw shows value of strong passwords
By Becky Waring, Windows Secrets
August 6, 2009

The disclosure of a back door allowing bad guys to repeatedly guess Gmail passwords should remind us all to protect our accounts with long and strong character strings.

There's a straightforward way to protect your online accounts ? use signin phrases that are easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess.

The latest vulnerability affecting Gmail accounts was recently revealed by security researcher Vicente Aguilera D?az in a posting on the Full Disclosure security list. (Aguilera previously revealed a Gmail flaw known as session-riding, which Google subsequently fixed, as reported by WS contributing editor Scott Spanbauer on April 23 and May 7.)

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[Kwinzee]

I use strong passwords for all email, blogs, payapl, bank, you name it. For example: my blogs are 40 characters, and include upper and lower case letters, numbers, brackets and symbols. For email, paypal etc, I use upper and lower case letters and numbers, at 25 characters. All completely random typing. The man who guesses my passwords is one clever guy.

The thing that promted me to do this is a friend of mine had his websites hacked and had to reinstall them all coz they were being used to upload malware. Plus they were full of viruses...

Needless to say, money was lost...

 

[kristin48616]

I?ve never realized the importance of password, as I never lost any important and valuable information. My passwords in email or blog are all very short. But it doesn?t show that I will avoid the harms of information stolen forever. And now I think it?s time for me to do something. Change my passwords for security! Thanks for the kind notification.