How safe is our Yahoo account?
The search engine that comes under the limelight next to “Google” is “Yahoo”. Yahoo is one of the largest websites in the United States that offers several exciting services to its users. News sources state that, on an average 700 million people visit Yahoo websites in a month. And, so do the hackers. LinkedIn was hacked a few months ago and Yahoo has been attacked recently. This is turning into a major cause of concern.
Hackers gained access to passwords of nearly 450,000 Yahoo users. The D33D hacking company has taken responsibility for this security breach. It is believed that the hackers used a union-based SQL injection to gain access to information in the database. The stolen credentials belong to the users of the Yahoo Contributor Network which was known as Associated Content. Yahoo has recently announced that the security flaw has been fixed. Affected users will be notified shortly and significant measures have been taken tosecure users data. New security measures are being enforced and the company has promised the safety of all user accounts.
Yahoo Contributor Network users will have to sign up using Yahoo, Google, Facebook or Gmail IDs. The users have been asked to change the password for these accounts, as these could have also been hacked. It insists on frequent password changes. The company has a list of online safety tips which can be viewed at security.yahoo.com. There is a talk that severe damage has been caused to the domain and sub domain of Yahoo, which has not been disclosed. The tips listed below will definitely prevent your accounts from being hacked.
Changing the passwords frequently is an easy and safe way to protect the account. Make sure to change it once in three months. Make the passwords complicated using a combination of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, symbols and names. The Yahoo account of Sarah Palin, Alaska’s former Governor, was hacked. The hacker made use of only her date of birth and home postal code to gain access to her information. A secret answer from her rally speech was taken from the account. Hackers are far knowledgeable than we think and can gain access to any account. Pay extra attention to the passwords.
If you are a person who does not have anti-virus software installed in your computer, you are at a higher risk. You can download free anti-virus software from the Internet. Wireless networking is easy to be hacked by people using “Sniffers”. The WPA key can be used in wireless networking, which is a master in providing security. Do not share your password with any third person. Answer security questions wisely. CNET made an analysis on hacked passwords and it revealed some shocking news. About 2,200 of the passwords were”123456” and 780 passwords were just “password”. Will this not make the job of a hacker easy? Hope this incident throws some insight on password framing.
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