The scandals that recently rocked the Twitterverse led to a flurry of Tweets about the security of social media. In 2 separate phishing attacks, accounts were hacked and fake status updates and direct messages were sent out.
In the first wave, a number of high profile accounts were hacked sending out fake status updates from Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Bill O’Reilly, Rick Sanchez and others.
So according to the latest reliable updates, Rick is NOT on crack and Britney’s you-know-what does not have teeth. I’m sure you were wondering, so I just wanted to clear it up.
As if this hacking wasn’t fun enough, suddenly regular folks like you and me started getting direct messages from people asking us to watch a video or read a blog or some other invite. I’ve been around long enough to know better, so I ignored them. But not everyone did. Upon clicking, Tweeps were taken to a copycat site set up to look like a Twitter log in page. Once you entered your username and password, it was history.
Here’s the really sad part:
The 18 year old Twitter hacker who got into Barack’s, et al, accounts used password guessing software to break in. And guess what the password was that got him into the hallowed halls of Twitter security?
Happiness.
Yeah, that was the password that got him in there, happiness. You’d think that maybe someone at Twitter could have gotten a little more creative, maybe Happ1ne$$ or Happiness69 or something a tad stronger.
In case this whole ordeal is making you a bit paranoid, here are a few sites where you can generate a stronger password. Be sure to keep track of these passwords in a safe place as they’ll probably be more complex than the word “happiness”.
Password Bird (super fast and easy to use)
Strong Password Generator (very cryptic for you ultra-security types)
About Nancy Marmolejo
