Has Your User ID and Password Been Compromised?

The CBC News network published a report a few months ago but the topic is still important to you.

You can check your user id by a search, personally I would not put my complete account name in the search box just the first three or four letters and then check the list that is provided.

But this list doesn't mean they are all the user account names and passwords that were stolen from Facebook, Yahoo, MySpace and others, they are just the ones published.

I urge you to do two things if you have a Facebook, Yahoo, MySpace and/or Pay Pal accounts:

• Change the password on all accounts


• Do not use the same password on all accounts.

As a matter of fact if you are using the same one on all accounts change them to be different ID's.

Never link one web site account with another, I know that you will see where web sites offer you the option of using a Facebook, Twitter, or another account to log on, don't do it.

This is a prime example of laziness, a hackers dream. Being able to harvest thousands if not millions of account name's that are linked to bank accounts.

The only time you would want to use a single log on is if you are on a secure network such as a company network.

Never use the same account name and password on two web sites or use the linking service such as Facebook, or Twitter, or any web site.

Your password was not hacked, that is the thief's did not get your password from your computer nor did they use a tool to decode it. They got the password from a poorly designed data base with out any security, it could have been an inside job such as the recent attack on the Sony company.

When you change your passwords to insure your accounts aren't compromised use complexity in the password such as:

• Not less than 11 characters


• A mix of numbers and letters


• At least two special characters (the characters above the numbers you have to use the shift to type ~ some web sites do not allow for special characters...)


• A mix of upper and lower case characters.

The CBC News report about the theft, there was a list of user id's and passwords that were stolen from Facebook but has been removed, hopefully yours wasn't on it.

Troubleshoot, repair, maintain, upgrade & secure...     With this!

10/24/13 As of this date more web sites that specialize in "social networking" have been hacked, the thieves has harvested over 50 MILLION user ID's and the count is growing... Can you say Net Neutrality? [Again the perpetrators have not been apprehended and I really doubt they will...]

04/15/14 Last week Yahoo! was hacked again, something like 40 Million user ID's and passwords were compromised, this was done with what is known as the heartbleed bug, a variability in some web hosting software (which one wasn't reported but I suspect it is Apache because I didn't get any notifications about Microsoft IIS). This goes back to not linking your accounts with other web sites and using complexity on both.

01/16/15 It happened again just before our leaders were to go on a "Cyber Security" tour. Sony was hacked and all the hollywood types have had their personal and company emails published by the NK gov. One day something really bad may happen and why? We ignored the warning signs for political gain [can you say Net Neutrality - not personal responsibility?]...

05/17/21 - Once again a social media web site was compromised, F a c e b o o k has over 50 Million members, the complete data base was stolen... (Did you notice that this web site IS NOT connected to any social media websites?) Well did you change or delete your account? This comment deserves a "Well, duh!"