Gone phishing: 90away4ack3r5

News of the latest phishing attack - this time the divulging of passwords for thousands of Hotmail accounts - is another reminder of how vulnerable we all are. But sometimes it’s difficult to know how to protect ourselves.

We might think we’re smart enough not to fall foul of phishing, but IT experts warn that email was never intended for anything other than text. It simply isn’t safe enough and if a bug goes undetected on your computer it might be capturing and transmitting confidential information putting the smooth operation of your business and, most worryingly, your bank accounts at risk.

In the same press release I also read that 40% of us use the same password for multiple sites. It’s hard to create strong, memorable for each account - especially when sites often have their own criteria and don’t allow total flexibility in choice of password i.e. limiting the number of characters - but I picked up some good tips from friends.

Alphanumeric passwords can be easily created that mean something to us, personally, but they aren’t based on our date of birth or other information that is too readily available. Hence the headline: go away hackers. You could also think about basing the string on the first letter of each word in a favourite song lyric or just Google ‘strong password’ and watch the advice come flooding in.