Another day, another display of how fragile all our cyber security really is. This time, Twitter’s been hit with a data breach, though it looks like the service itself isn’t the one to blame. That doesn’t really matter much, though, as you should probably change your password if you’re among the victims—or if you’re not. Changing your password from time to time is just a good idea, which is why we all do it so often.
Just kidding. No one does that, but at least you’re not one of the people who use the most common passwords that LeakedSource identified in the leak—those being “123456” and “123456789”—right? Right? All of the top passwords listed are equally depressing, by the way. Anyway, LeakedSource has a searchable database of the infiltrated accounts so you can check whether or not yours is among them, or you can skip that step and just go with better safe than sorry. (For what it’s worth, their database also correctly identifies that my Adobe account was breached a few years back, so I’m willing to believe they’ve got this right, too.)
Don’t be too quick to blame Twitter, though (for this, at least). The data appears to have been stolen from users’ web browsers after they became infected with a virus. Letting your browser remember your accounts and passwords may be convenient, but don’t forget that it also makes those security measures kind of pointless. It’s like hiding a key outside of your house in case you forget yours, but placing it underneath a fake rock that says, “Fake rock. Key inside,” on it.
LeakedSource says, “This data set contains 32,888,300 records. Each record may contain an email address, a username, sometimes a second email and a visible password. We have very strong evidence that Twitter was not hacked, rather the consumer was. These credentials however are real and valid. Out of 15 users we asked, all 15 verified their passwords.” Twitter has not yet responded, though again, this isn’t their fault—the best they can really do is publicly recommend that users change their passwords just in case.
(via PCWorld, image via Twitter)
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