Eleven years ago, RockYou, a public social application site suffered a data breach exposing all their user’s personal information. The hackers created and released a text file labeled “RockYou” containing over 32 million user accounts and passwords. This file was made available to both the public and the dark web therefore, anybody with a copy of this file can access your account or accounts.
Last year, the largest data breach in history occurred. This breach called “RockYou2021” exposed 8.4 billion entries on the internet. This recent incident exposed more than twice the amount of information the first data breach had. The TXT file has grown into a 100 GB file and is considered a password dictionary for hackers. This list poses a significant threat to its victims since it can be easily spread throughout the internet and the black market, therefore, allowing hackers to steal your data. Moreover, most people use the same password across various apps and websites which compromises multiple of your accounts.
It is important to stay cyber secure as we welcome the year so here is a friendly reminder to include changing your passwords in your new year resolution.
Just like how we lower the risk to our physical bodies by having good personal hygiene, we can also take preventive actions to take care of our online selves by having good password hygiene. According to NordPass, these five tips can help you maintain good password hygiene:
It is important to remember not to reuse the same password for any of your accounts. The danger of reusing your password is simple it can be leaked and stolen. A great website to use and check if your credentials have been stolen and act is Have I Been Pwned?
This year make your new years resolution to change your password more frequently. Trust us! You won't regret it!
Source:
New Year, New Passwords - KG Hawes - Partners in Technology
New year, new passwords: Avoiding hacking in 2020 | Top Stories | nny360.com
Making Passwords Easy! (reisinformatica.com)