password

LinkedIn said today that it has contacted police about the compromise of its users' passwords that hackers were actively cracking earlier this week.

"Yesterday we learned that approximately 6.5 million hashed LinkedIn passwords were posted on a hacker site. Most of the passwords on the list appear to remain hashed and hard to decode, but unfortunately a small subset of the hashed passwords was decoded and published," Vicente Silveira, a director at the professional social-networking site, wrote in a blog post. "We are also actively working with law enforcement, which is investigating this matter."

The … Read more

NirSoft's PasswordFox is a free tool that extracts and displays the passwords stored in your Mozilla Firefox profile or any other user's profile. It displays each password's Record Index, Web Site, User Name, User Name Field, and other data. It also creates HTML-based reports that you can save or print. PasswordFox works in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows.

PasswordFox is portable freeware that runs without needing to be installed. When you first open the program, it automatically detects your main Firefox user profile and displays the data under headings that can be customized by clicking … Read more

It's time to pony up for prepaid iPhones, avoid password scams and drop that mayor obsession:

The iPhone is coming to Virgin Mobile at the end of June. But you'll have to drop a hefty $650 to get the iPhone 4S, since there's no two-year contract. Plans start at $30 a month. It's cheaper in the long run to go prepaid with this plan instead of spending $200 upfront and paying for a more expensive monthly bill for two years (but you'll be limited with talk minutes). Virgin is on the Sprint network.

If Android … Read more

The dating Web site eHarmony got hit by the same group that released a list of LinkedIn member passwords yesterday, so be sure to change your passwords for both if you have accounts.

Buzzfeed also parsed through the list of leaked passwords to reveal some pretty depressing sentiments from employees. While many accounts used overly simplistic passwords like "LinkedIn" or "password1," some of the more disturbing pass phrases include things like "suicide," "solonely," "iwishiwasdead," and "divorce." They're still not very strong in terms of security, so be sure to add a special character or a number during the bleak changeover.… Read more

Last.fm today urged its users to change their passwords because of a compromise that may be related to a huge password leak involving LinkedIn and eHarmony.

"We are currently investigating the leak of some Last.fm user passwords. This follows recent password leaks on other sites, as well as information posted online," a Last.fm blog post said. "As a precautionary measure, we're asking all our users to change their passwords immediately."

The blog post did not say how many users were affected or how the passwords were leaked. A Last.fm executive did … Read more

The years change, but the stories remain the same. Passwords are a crappy defense and most of us use poor ones in exchange for ease of use.

Scads of LinkedIn users have had their passwords stolen. Phishing attacks ensued to prey on LinkedIn users. Now eHarmony has had issues. Passwords are regularly swiped from Web mail accounts.

The problem: Passwords may be the most imperfect security measure around. Most users don't want to sacrifice usability for a good password.

Sure, there are encryption techniques, two-factor authentication and other enhanced security measures. The reality is that most of us stick … Read more

Dating site eHarmony confirmed today that passwords used by its members were compromised following reports of references to the site among allegedly stolen passwords that were posted to a hacker site.

"After investigating reports of compromised passwords, we have found that a small fraction of our user base has been affected. We are continuing to investigate but would like to provide the following actions we are taking to protect our members," Becky Teraoka, spokeswoman for eHarmony, wrote in a blog post. "As a precaution, we have reset affected members passwords. Those members will receive an email with … Read more

Earlier today rumors started sweeping across the Internet that LinkedIn account passwords had been leaked online. A few hours later, LinkedIn confirmed that the rumors were true; millions of account passwords had been compromised and posted online.

Almost just as fast as the story started spreading, a link to LeakedIn.org was being passed around as a way to check if your password was leaked in the security breach. To figure out if you're affected, LeakedIn requires you to enter your account password. Your password is then converted to its SHA-1 equivalent and then is compared to the list … Read more

In today's show we're changing our passwords, talking to strangers and pretending we can fly:

Google Maps are going 3D. Google announced new features it's building into maps, and it gives the perspective of what you might see if you could fly between buildings. Multiple photos are taken by airplanes, and then it's automatically stitched together to look like a 3D model. The demo was of San Francisco, but no word on which other cities will be the first to get this feature. It is expected to cover 300 million people by the end of the … Read more