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E-mail Security Questions Are a Cinch for Hackers to Snatch, Study Says

by Caleb Johnson on March 10, 2010 at 02:30 PM

According to the BBC News, the personal answers of security questions allowing access to e-mail accounts are more common and easily guessed than previously expected. In a joint study, a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh found that hackers could access one out of every 80 accounts when given three tries to answer a security question, even if they knew nothing about the owner of the account. These questions, which range from asking for a mother's maiden name to the name of a childhood pet, are even easier to guess if the target is an acquaintance. And with so much personal information posted online, it's easy to cull answers without ever meeting face-to-face.

Since this isn't the first time we've heard about this problem, it's alarming it is still an issue, given the damage a hacker can do with access to an e-mail account. Lead researcher Joseph Bonneau told the BBC that e-mail clients' requiring several questions to be answered would lower the chances of an account being hacked. On your end, come up with some creative answers. After all, you weren't the only one who had a dog named Spot. [From: BBC News]

Tags: email, hack, questions, security, study, top, web

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