passwords

When a Web site or app rejects your password as weak, the wrong length, or containing the wrong characters, don't swear and start adding stuff to an existing (and expired) password; download and run Awesome Password Generator instead. This simple, free tool from InfoPro quickly creates strong, random passwords and WPA passphrases of just the right length, type, and number of characters, and other parameters you set. But it doesn't just generate random strings of characters; its algorithms can create strong passwords that aren't difficult to type or that omit confusing characters such as 0 (zero) and … Read more

After former Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan's entire digital presence was hacked via a loophole in AppleCare, Apple now says it is looking into how users can reset their account passwords to ensure that their data is protected.

It all began when Honan took to his Tumblr blog on Friday, detailing the events that led to his online life being sabotaged -- with his Google and Twitter accounts being deleted and his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone being wiped clean. He blamed an AppleCare technician for allowing his accounts to be hacked, as well as the tech blog's official feed.… Read more

Password Workbook Pro by Best Security Tips is a free database tool optimized for saving, storing, and managing not only your secure passwords but also user codes, cell phone logs, contacts, e-mail accounts, credit card info, PINs, network shares, and anything you need keep safe and secure yet accessible.

When we'd finished downloading and installing Password Workbook Pro, we had the opportunity to open an existing database or create a new one; lacking any, we chose the latter, which involves choosing a location and saving the program's proprietary database file. We created a password, known as the combination … Read more

A New Hampshire man filed suit against Yahoo this week alleging that lax security measures allowed hackers to get into a Yahoo database and steal passwords from 450,000 accounts.

In his lawsuit seeking class-action status -- filed in federal court in San Jose, Calif., on Tuesday (PDF) -- Jeff Allan is asking the court to order Yahoo to compensate him and others for "resulting account fraud" and measures people had to take to protect against identity theft.

Not only was Allan's Yahoo password stolen but someone also had accessed his eBay account without his permission after … Read more

When a few hundred Dropbox users began receiving spam emails about online casinos and gambling sites two weeks ago, it seemed like something was up. And indeed there was.

The online file storage service confirmed today that hackers accessed usernames and passwords from third party sites and then used them to get into Dropbox users' accounts.

"Our investigation found that usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. We've contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts," the company wrote in a blog … Read more

Some Mac users who have upgraded to OS X 10.8 have found that Apple's Safari Web browser is crashing. From the crash reports it appears that the problem is rooted around the use of the password manager 1Password; however, upon further investigation the problem has been found to be on Apple's end.

The crashes only seem to happen for a small number of 1Password users, indicating that the problem is not a major bug in the program but rather a conflict with a specific configuration.

After reports surfaced of the crashes, the 1Password development team investigated the issue … Read more

If you'd like to keep some of your files from prying eyes, Password Pad lets you create text documents and protect them with either XOR encryption or Triple DES encryption and share them via e-mail, iCloud, Dropbox, or iTunes file sharing.

There are free and paid versions of Password Pad in the Mac App Store. Password Pad Lite is free and supports XOR encryption, which the app itself admits "might be easily cracked." The $4.99 Password Pad app supplies stronger Triple DES encryption. I tried out the Lite version because all I am trying to do … Read more

NQ Mobile Vault is the simplest application I've seen for keeping text messages, call history, contacts, photos, and videos private on your mobile device. Celebrities, pay attention.

Basically, Vault creates an encrypted, password-protected space on your device, in which you can store photos, videos, text messages, and call history. It's easy to move items into and out of the space, and you can even permanently delete them, if you'd like.

Once you create your password, there are a few ways to start using Vault. First, within the app, you can pull up all of your messages and … Read more

Yahoo fell victim to a security breach that yielded hundreds of thousands of login credentials stored in plain text, but it appears users also did little to protect themselves.

The hacked data, posted to the hacker site D33D Company, contained more than 453,000 login credentials and appears to have originated from the Web pioneer's network. The hackers, who said they used a union-based SQL injection technique to penetrate the Yahoo subdomain, intended the data dump to be a "wake-up call." [Update, 11:13 a.m. PT: On Friday morning, Yahoo gave the all-clear, saying "We ... … Read more