How Paris Hilton Got Hacked? Bad Password Protection
from the tinkerbell dept
This morning, in Good Morning Silicon Valley, John Paczkowski joked (I think) that he'd bet "$5 and a Swarovski-encrusted dunce cap says her password was Tinkerbell." He might be right. While T-Mobile still says they're trying to figure out how Paris Hilton's T-Mobile account got hacked, Brian McWilliams has it all figured out. Her password might not have been Tinkerbell (the well known name of her dog), but the secret question to get her password reset was: "What is your favorite pet's name?" Yup. It wasn't necessarily social engineering or a security hole or even real hacking (though, in some sense, it was a combination of all three). It was good, old fashioned, stupidity -- leaving the keys under the front door matt with a big sign that says "keys under the matt" next to it.
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the joke may be on Hilton
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Bruce Schneier wrote just recently about this secu
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/02/the_curse_of_th.html
- The Precision Blogger
http://precision-blogging.blogspot.com
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Use " other " ? & make one up
Use the " oter " question catagory.
Ask yourself a question that NOONE would understand BUT you.
Works for me & even if the system were hacked, my question wouldn't even make sense to the hacker.
Problem solved.
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Re: Use
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Re: Use
I mean, who keeps perfect naked pictures of themselves on their mobile camera? For what possible reason? "Hey, I want to see if I've gained any extra weight from eating that ice cream sundae?"
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Re: Bruce Schneier wrote just recently about this
secret reminder question: meow
reminder answer: What do dogs say?
That's one heck of a long passphrase for no extra work ;)
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T-Mobile Password Hacking
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Paris Hilton
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paris hiltoon
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