Clear Belief Systems Blog » News http://clearbelief.com/blog Technology Services You Can Believe In Wed, 31 Mar 2010 22:00:39 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=abc en hourly 1 A Lesson In Simple Passwords http://clearbelief.com/blog/2010/01/21/a-lesson-in-simple-passwords/ http://clearbelief.com/blog/2010/01/21/a-lesson-in-simple-passwords/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:37:45 +0000 Don Fosen http://clearbelief.com/blog/?p=67 A company recently did an analysis of 32 millions passwords that were published on the Internet from a breach at RockYou.com.  This was a very rare opportunity to look at the passwords people select using a large set of data.  The results?  20% of the 32 million password created were from a very small pool of 5000 words.  This is problematic because hackers frequently use tools that conduct multiple logins using a dictionary of common words.  This software can run through thousands of passwords a minute and find accounts it can access.  The hackers then exploit these accounts or sell them to other criminals.

Your best bet?  Use passwords that contain mixed case, letters and numbers, and throw in a special character now and then.  Don’t use your birthday or your family names, including your pets.  And whatever you do, don’t use “123456″ – the most common of the common passwords.

Additional Information:
Simple Passwords Remain Popular
Analysis of 32 million passwords

]]> http://clearbelief.com/blog/2010/01/21/a-lesson-in-simple-passwords/feed/ 0 Anti-virus Scammers Have Made $150M http://clearbelief.com/blog/2009/12/15/anti-virus-scammers-have-made-150m/ http://clearbelief.com/blog/2009/12/15/anti-virus-scammers-have-made-150m/#comments Mon, 14 Dec 2009 22:07:43 +0000 Don Fosen http://clearbelief.com/blog/?p=49 The FBI is saying that anti-virus scammers have made in excess of $150 million by duping Windows users into buying fake anti-virus software.  The scam usually involves a pop-up window on your PC saying it is at risk and gives you a link to buy software which is really a virus.  Frequently these programs are call Windows AntiSpyware 2009 or something similar.   Even users without administrative permissions can install the virus as it uses unpatched security defects in Windows itself to install.

Additional Information:
FBI: Rogue antivirus scammers have made $150M
Remove Antispyware 2009

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