Tag Archives: passwords

Are hackers’ passwords stronger than regular passwords?

Hackers use weak passwords just like the rest of us. Nearly two thousand passwords used by hackers were leaked this week, when I tried to decode a PHP shell without knowing the key. Because I did not know the exact content of the encoded file and searching the key could take me years, I chose a […]

eBay becomes victim of security breach

Auction giant eBay requests 128 million users to change their passwords after hack. In a blog post from the company, eBay Inc. said a cyberattack “compromised a database containing encrypted passwords and other non-financial data.” There is no evidence that the compromise resulted in users’ financial or credit card information being stolen, but the company is […]

Heartbleed: Almost Everyone Plans to Protect Themselves, but Less than Half of People Actually Have

Have you heard about Heartbleed? Yes? Then you belong to a minority. Following the Heartbleed threat, the bug that took advantage of a vulnerability in OpenSSL, AVAST conducted an online survey with 268,000 respondents worldwide and found that three out of four people were not aware of the the Heartbleed threat, which affected millions of […]

Do you hate updating your passwords whenever there’s a new hack?

We reported yesterday about the serious Heartbleed  bug which allows hackers to steal encryption keys from nearly two-thirds of all websites. “This is probably the worst bug discovered this year. We believed in the security of SSL/TLS, and now discover that it comes with a hole that allows anyone to read our personal information such […]

Heartbleed affects much of internet. Time to change your passwords again.

The security community is buzzing with news of a threat called Heartbleed. The bug reportedly affects nearly two-thirds of all websites, including Yahoo Mail, OKCupid, WeTransfer, and others. The bug takes advantage of a vulnerability in OpenSSL, an open-source protocol used to encrypt vast portions of the web. It allows cybercrooks to steal encryption keys, usernames […]

Heartbleed affects much of internet. Time to change your passwords again.

The security community is buzzing with news of a threat called Heartbleed. The bug reportedly affects nearly two-thirds of all websites, including Yahoo Mail, OKCupid, WeTransfer, and others. The bug takes advantage of a vulnerability in OpenSSL, an open-source protocol used to encrypt vast portions of the web. It allows cybercrooks to steal encryption keys, usernames […]

How many variations of “qwerty” and “1234? can you think of?

I am quite surprised at how inventive people can be when it comes to the thinking up weak passwords. The obviously weak combinations like ’1234′ or ‘qwerty’ along with names and phone numbers are quite common parts of passwords. Some background The story begins with me fighting a familiar piece of malware, Bicololo, which is […]

Is Dropbox Dropping in on Your Shared Files?

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The ability to instantly share and interact through online sources has become an expected part of our daily lives. We live in a time where any service that helps make this happen is quickly welcomed. And because of this mentality, cloud services such as Dropbox, where people can access shared information and files in real-time Read more…

Cover Yourself: Google Leaves Your Passwords Exposed

We would like to assume that passwords saved in our web browser are stored in a secured virtual lock box, helping us to surf the web with increased speed and easily log into our favorite sites without sacrificing safety. Unfortunately, this might not be the case on Google Chrome, as it was recently brought to Read more…

Two Steps are Better Than One: Make a Hacker’s Job Harder with Two-step Verification

Every day, life for many consumers has become more “digital” than before—this has made day-to-day tasks easier for many of us, but it also creates new challenges. From online banking to medical records, the need to protect our private, personal information is imperative. Too often, the same password is used for multiple online accounts—for instance, Read more…