S tolen Passwords, Worst Breaches and Locked Accounts
Here’s the news we’re talking about around the Zbra Studios water cooler. We’ve provided key bullet points from each article for the speed readers out there.
Your password has probably been stolen. Here’s what to do about it.
By Geoffrey A. Fowler from The Washington Post
- “Type in your email address and Have I Been Pwned lists websites and apps on which your passwords have been compromised. (“Pwned,” pronounced like “owned,” is geek speak for conquered.) Try your family members’ emails and your favorite passwords, too.”
- “After testing password managers that work across browsers and devices, I recommend one called Dashlane. It’s the one simple enough that you’re likely to stick with it, though its features are neck and neck with rivals 1Password and LastPass, which are also fine choices.”
- “Beyond just remembering passwords, these programs are also getting deeper into the business of keeping you safe. They’ll analyze your trove of passwords, give you a grade on their security and politely prompt you to change passwords when they are reused or weak, or when sites report they’ve been hacked. 1Password recently began working with Have I Been Pwned to flag and stop you from using passwords that are known to have been compromised.”
The Worst Cybersecurity Breaches of 2018 So Far
By Lily Hay Newman from Wired
- “US Universities
In March, the Department of Justice indicted nine Iranian hackers over an alleged spree of attacks on more than 300 universities in the United States and abroad.” - “Rampant Data Exposures
Data breaches have continued apace in 2018, but their quiet cousin, data exposure, has been prominent this year as well. A data exposure, as the name suggests, is when data is stored and defended improperly such that it is exposed on the open internet and could be easily accessed by anyone who comes across it.“ - “One to Watch: VPNFilter
At the end of May, officials warned about a Russian hacking campaign that has impacted more than 500,000 routers worldwide. The attack spreads a type of malware, known as VPNFilter, which can be used to coordinate the infected devices to create a massive botnet. But it can also directly spy on and manipulate web activity on the compromised routers.”
Why Some of Instagram’s Biggest Memers Are Locking Their Accounts
By Taylor Lorenz from The Atlantic
- “Over the past six months, some of Instagram’s biggest meme pages… have locked down their accounts, forcing non-followers to request access in order to view their content.”
- “Going private on Instagram means only people who follow you can see and share your content. If a friend drops a link to a funny meme from a private page into a group chat, only those who already follow the page will be able to see it. So, the thinking goes, anyone who wants to see it and can’t will smash the follow button.”
- “Hailey says that before one of his large accounts went private, it was growing at an average of 10,000 new followers per week. Once it flipped to private, that number jumped to 100,000.”
Nick Cotton is a project manager based out of Los Angeles, California. He’s got a background in the entertainment industry, and uses his talent at online messaging to extol the virtues of content marketing, interactive fiction and sentences measuring 280 characters or less.
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