I generally do not read much in the way of computer/tech news. What tech news I do get I get from the fine people over at twit live. I was watching a show on Wednesday there that shed some light on passwords that was fairly common sense, and had some good basic information to chew on.
The basic info is good stuff to know if you aren’t much of a techie, like longer passwords are better passwords. A 6 digit/letter password is fairly easily hacked, and can be broken fairly quickly. Make it longer, and use more than just letters, and go lower case and upper case, and it makes hacking your password more difficult.
Because a password hack is something where a sequence of numbers and letters is tried, and if the hacker misses it, he starts again, from zero, knowing nothing about your password. If he or she(or more accurately, the program used to try to get your password) happens to randomly guess a portion of your password, they don’t know. It is simply a straight up yes or no, either they have it, or they don’t. A zero sum game. (At least that’s the way I’ve heard it. Not being a cyber security expert, I could be wrong. I’ve wouldn’t know an SQL injection attack from a hole in the wall.)
Which makes a password that is as complex as possible (and yet memorable, so you don’t have a problem getting into your own system) vitally important. That and don’t use the same password on every single system you need a password for. If they break you in one place, and you have that same password in other places, they have you everywhere.
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I say that to say this.
The people over at lulzsec, hacked an FBI affiliate, name of Infragard.
Infragard is a company which began local cyber-security operations in Cleveland, Ohio in 1996, and grew to be in every FBI office in the nation within 7 years. They are in the business of “information sharing and analysis” to prevent hostile terrorist acts against the United States. Some however, think that they may be more interested in spying on Americans whom they were deemed suspicious, and that they may have moved outside the realm of actual anti-terrorist activities.
I know not enough about them to speak on that particular bit of information at length. When I know more I’ll get it to you.
What I do know is that the fine people at Lulzsec got in using passwords of the people there, whose main job is cybersecurity, because their passwords were either too short, or else were passwords that they use on other less secure sites. These people at Infragard are the people who are defending us against international cyber attack?
On top of this they then hacked a white hat hacker who works with the FBI and runs a site called unveillance, who supposedly said he wanted lulzsec to hack his competitors and offered to pay them. The man who runs that site has a different story, claiming they wanted money from him, and tried to extort him into giving up sensitive information about his clients and cash.
Lulzsec has gone after Sony, and PBS, posting the now infamous “Tupac is alive” story all over the internet, and now an FBI affiliate that has business all over the nation and has thousands of customers, all of them businesses.
Seems there is a cyber war heating up teh intarwebs.
Avoid getting yer ass burned, America. Change your passwords.
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That’s it from here, America. G’night.
Casus Belli 