“You may snigger when you hear that a few months after the euphemistically named AdultFriendFinder was hacked, now Ashley Madison has had its turn,” Glenn Fleishman writes for Macworld. “The site, which enthusiastically advertises its ability to connect people to have affairs, had its accounts compromised, according to security reporter Brian Krebs and confirmed by the company.”
“This site breach is the latest in a seemingly endless series of attacks against sites that have millions or tens of millions of user accounts, and in which that account information gets distributed widely,” Fleishman writes. “Crackers and white-hat hackers immediately start looking at the data, both to attack accounts and to warn users.”
Fleishman writes, “The conclusion that I draw from these breaches, and especially the recent LastPass account information compromise, is that we may be focusing too much on a strong password and not enough on unique passwords.”
Read more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Too many people use one password for multiple services and weak passwords at that. Once hackers guess it, they then have access to all sorts of things: cloud storage, bank accounts, Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.
You want to use unique, strong passwords. Use two-step verification for Apple ID to keep your personal information as secure as possible.More info here.
As we’ve written before: Use Apple’s Keychain Access and iCloud Keychain to create and manage them. When used properly, this system works like a dream.
SEE ALSO:
Major zero-day security flaws in both iOS and OS X allow theft of Keychain, app passwords – June 17, 2015
Many passwords are so bad they don’t even need to be hacked – January 20, 2015
The secret life of passwords – November 22, 2014
Apple’s iCloud is secure; weak passwords and gullible users are not – September 2, 2014