Quote of the Month

‘’The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.’’

 

-Albert Einstein-

Uniblue Tip Of The Month for March 2010

Top 10 passwords you should never use

A ccording to a report, most users still haven't answered the call by security experts to implement more robust passwords. In fact, in a list of the most easy to hack passwords, simply typing '123456' took a truly forgettable top prize.

Security firm Imperva recently released its list of the passwords most likely to be hacked based on 32 million instances of successful hacking. Imperva named their report "Consumer Password Worst Practices," and some of the entries near the top are truly simple and could lead to theft or identity fraud.

Top 10 Worst Passwords
The following is a list of the most predictable passwords, and should not be used under any circumstances 

(Source: pcworld.com):

1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123

 

 

 

 

 

How to Strengthen Your Passwords

Other key findings in the report: it seems that almost 1 in 3  users choose passwords comprised of six or fewer characters; more than half use passwords based on only alpha-numeric characters; and almost 50 per cent used variations on their name, popular slang terms, or simple strings of consecutive characters from the average QWERTY keyboard -- such as 'asdfg'.

Imperva has made several obvious recommendations, suggesting most users adopt passwords with at least eight characters and to mix those characters between upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols. Passwords should be simple enough that they won't be too easily forgotten, but the idea is to make cracking the code virtually impossible for either an unknown or known hacker.

About this article: Dennis Faas is the CEO and Chief editor of Infopackets.com: a daily, digital publication dedicated to MS Windows, computing, technology trends and solutions to real life computing issues: all written in simple English. Subscription to Infopackets Windows Newsletter is free. Visit us today! www.infopackets.com

NOW AVAILABLE

Author Yolanda P Garcia, just released her new 

2nd edition book of "Lost And Found Love", 

now available for purchase at: 

Victory Publishing.  http://www.victoryp.com

Get your copy of lost and found love, today!

Joke of The Day

Nuns In Transylvania

Two nuns, Sister Marilyn and Sister Helen, are traveling through Europe in their 
car. They get to Transylvania and are stopped at a traffic light.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a tiny little Dracula jumps onto the hood of the car 
and hisses through the windshield.

"Quick, quick!" shouts Sister Marilyn. "What shall we do?"

"Turn the windshield wipers on. That will get rid of the abomination," says 
Sister Helen.

Sister Marilyn switches them on, knocking Dracula about, but he clings on.

"What shall I do now?" she shouts.

"Switch on the windshield washer. I filled it up with Holy Water at the 
Vatican," says Sister Helen.

Sister Marilyn turns on the windshield washer. Dracula screams as the water 
burns his skin, but he clings on and continues hissing at the nuns.

"Now what?" shouts Sister Marilyn.

"Show him your cross," says Sister Helen.

"Now you're talking," says Sister Marilyn. She opens the window and shouts, "Get 
the f*ck off our car!"

NAMIwalks - Recently Posted

Calling all NAMI Walkers!

It is that time again, On May 22, 2010 at 11am, is when all walkers of the world unite and to show their support in fundraising enough money, to find cures in hopes of curing mental illness.

I am asking anyone reading this blog to please join the team "All Walks Of Life" and walk with us for a 5K walk one Saturday mid morning. It's all about pulling together for something we care about. Upon joining the team, raise only $100 in donations from friends, family members, co-workers etc. and receive a free NAMI T-shirt on the day of the walk. The link to follow is below this blog. 

View team page: www.nami.org/namiwalks10/SFO/allwalksoflife

This is just only a day out of all our busy schedules, if anyone can make a commitment to come together for just one day, so can the rest of us.


View team page: www.nami.org/namiwalks10/SFO/allwalksoflife

Online Identity Theft

Everyday, while the world is in circulation 24/7 with people constantly online, making their 

online purchases, we sometimes forget that there are real cyber criminals out there in the 

shadows monitering our every moves on the computer. We might not be able to identify who 

they are in the real world. So I would like to share this piece of information on 

how to deal with identity theft. This is from the Bank of America website.  Read on.

Research — Identity Theft The past year has been highlighted by a flurry of new research on identity theft.  Most notable is that all the recent studies point to an identity theft epidemic, one  that has been considerably underreported for years. The research also finds that early detection is the key to preventing financial and other losses relating to identity theft. Furthermore, the groundbreaking Federal Trade Commission report reveals that the  majority of identity theft victims discovered the fraud themselves by monitoring their  accounts. As a Bank of America® Privacy Assist® member, you have ongoing access to changes in your credit file that may be an indication of fraud and the assistance of our Identity Theft Recovery Unit should you fid yourself a victim of this growing crime. Federal Trade Commission Identity Theft Survey Report, September 2003 http://www.ftc.gov/os/2003/09/synovatereport.pdf Gartner, Inc, Gartner Says Identity Theft Is Up Nearly 80 Percent; 7 Million U.S. Adults Were Identity Theft Victims in the Past 12 Months, July 2003 http://www3.gartner.com/5_about/press_releases/pr21july2003a.jsp Identity Theft Resource Center Identity Theft: The Aftermath 2003, Summer 2003 http://www.idtheftcenter.org/artman2/publish/lib_survey/Press_Release_-_The_Aftermath_2003_Study.shtml Privacy & American Business Privacy & American Business Survey Finds 33.4 Million Americans Victims of ID Theft; Consumer Out-of-Pocket Expenses Total $1.5 Billion a Year, July 2003 http://www.securitymanagement.com/library/Harris_ID_Theft1103.pdf