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Major No-No: Most People Use Same Password for E-mail and Facebook

by Lee Bains on August 17, 2010 at 08:30 AM

password We understand, better than most maybe, that it can be maddening to conjure and remember a bunch of passwords for a bunch of online services. Still, we manage. Granted, we do recycle some passwords, but we make sure never to register for a site with an e-mail address and that particular address's password. Unfortunately, according to a new study from BitDefender, 75-percent of Web users do exactly that.

Because hackers can always, it seems, finagle their ways into finding passwords, it's best not to make their jobs any easier. If you use one password for both Facebook or Twitter and your e-mail address, change one of them immediately. (We suggest something similar, in your memory or a personal theme, for both sites. For instance, use a pet's name plus your favorite number for all social networking passwords, and another pet/number combo for e-mail.) It's bad enough to have your Facebook hacked, but to have your e-mail account compromised along with it is almost too much to bear. [From: Security Week, via: Slashdot]

Tags: email, hack, password, password protection, PasswordProtection, privacy, security, socialnetworking

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