Yahoo has announced that an unidentified number of their email accounts have been compromised – which has lead to Yahoo passwords being hacked – they claim that the breach of usernames + passwords came from a third-party database. Speculation is that the this 3rd-party database is some kind of app which uses Yahoo! accounts for authentication – a commonly used practice, which is also available with Google, Facebook and other social site authentication.
Yahoo was not forthcoming with details of the number of accounts breached, saying that the matter was under investigation and that an ongoing criminal investigation was underway.
Password security is imperative these days – strong passwords are a must and if you share the password used with multiple sites, you risk more. We recommend a password of random characters and punctuation – and the use of a Password Manager application – use different passwords on different sites.
Do you need a random password generator? We wrote one!
Random Password – or – Multiple Random Passwords
Use a Password Manager:
Examples of a assword manager are “LastPass” (there is a free edition). Notable in that it works very well from a USB drive is “KeePass” – another password Manager.