Jul/090
Twittergate: What We Can Learn From The Twitter Hacking
Earlier this week, a hacker broke into a Twitter administrator’s personal e-mail account and stole some of Twitter’s private financial documents and notes. The hacker sent 310 documents to TechCrunch, a popular technology blog, which then published a financial forecast for Twitter. Mike Arrington, TechCrunch’s founder and co-editor, stated that he plans to post the documents. This decision caused outrage among many readers across the Web.
Not only does the Twitter hacking raise questions about the security of storing personal and business information on the Internet, it also shows the importance of following good personal security habits, such as choosing strong and unique passwords. The Official Google Blog gives some helpful online safety tips that we should all be practicing:
• Avoid common elements (words or phrases from the dictionary) when choosing your password. Especially avoid words that are easy to guess like ‘password,’ the name of the site you’re logging into, birthdays, and addresses.
• Make your password as unique as possible. Add in numbers or non-alphanumerical characters and mix in upper-case letters. You can use similar-looking substitutions for parts of the password, such as “$” for “s” and “0” for “o.”
• Create different passwords for different sites so if one password is compromised, the others will remain secure.
• Do not share your passwords with anyone and if you suspect someone might have discovered one of your passwords, change it immediately.
To read more about choosing a good password and security question, check out Does Your Password Pass the Test? on Google’s blog here.
