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You Don't Know Hack!
By Kate Sophia
A call comes into the helpline. The caller is having difficulty logging in to see his pay stub. He's typing in the password that he knows for the account, but it's not recognized. The password is reset by the phone consultant and all appears to be well. Later in the day he notices that he hasn't gotten any e-mail for several hours. Another call to the helpline reveals that his mail has been forwarded to a person he doesn't know—a day's worth of important e-mails lost with no way of recovery.
Reports of hackers accessing private data are ubiquitous. While you might have, on occasion, been concerned that your data could be at risk from someone else's error, have you ever wondered if you might be the weak link in the chain? Perhaps you don't have access to thousands of people's private data, but losing control of your own private data is no small deal.
What if nefarious e-mails were being sent from your account without your knowledge? What if your e-mail account completely stopped receiving messages—even spam? What if you suddenly discovered that "you" had dropped all of your classes or declined a financial aid award? The fact is that these situations are not hypothetical—they have really happened to members of the University community. The key factor in all of them was that they lost control of their password.
When a person's account is compromised, the first thing they want to know is how it happened. Unfortunately, that's the difficult part. Unless you have voluntarily given your password to a trusted friend or relative who turned out to be undeserving of that trust, generally only speculation is possible. But one element that is increasingly a factor is the age of the password.
The older a password is, the more likely that it's a weaker password. In the past few years, stricter requirements for passwords have been enforced and options for stronger passwords (increased length capabilities and special character allowances) enabled. If a password was set before these requirements and options took effect, the password could be very simple and easy to crack. Older passwords also have simply been "out there" longer, giving more opportunity for them to be cracked.
In the above examples, the affected users only found out that they had lost control of their password when something went wrong. Unfortunately, their passwords could have been known to others long before any malicious action was taken. So how can you take control?
First of all, it's important to never give your password to anybody for any reason. It is also extremely important to follow good computer security practices, such as updating your operating system and antivirus program. One simple thing that can be done that will both increase the security of your old password and give you piece of mind: change your password. Once you change your password, you know that you alone are the only person that can know that password.
Nobody wants to be the person behind headlines that pronounce private data was leaked, and nobody wants to piece their life back together after their account has been compromised. Take a moment now to examine the security of your computer and to change your Internet password.
