Over the weekend a hacker group called Gnosis compromised Gawker & all it's sites. It collected all the usernames of the registered commenters on all the sites Gawker owns. This would include Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Deadspin & others. Now I read the first two, but have never registered or left a comment, so I'm OK.
The problem is, of course, the hackers got hold of e-mail addresses & passwords. Now if it's only comments that's one thing. But if you use the same password at shopping sites, now it's a big problem. Check your credit card bills if that's the case.
Seriously, if you use the same password everywhere, well that's just dumb. Of course, the only site I have ever bought anything at is Apple. And I have a different password there than anywhere else. I blog here (obviously), but also on a sports site. Different username, different password. My cell phone providers website? Different username, different password. Three different e-mail accounts, different providers, different usernames, different passwords. That's what you're supposed to do. But heck, ther head of Gawker was using the same password everywhere. Duh!
Be very careful. The term "identity theft" didn't exist before the creation of the internet. There's a reason for that.
The problem is, of course, the hackers got hold of e-mail addresses & passwords. Now if it's only comments that's one thing. But if you use the same password at shopping sites, now it's a big problem. Check your credit card bills if that's the case.
Seriously, if you use the same password everywhere, well that's just dumb. Of course, the only site I have ever bought anything at is Apple. And I have a different password there than anywhere else. I blog here (obviously), but also on a sports site. Different username, different password. My cell phone providers website? Different username, different password. Three different e-mail accounts, different providers, different usernames, different passwords. That's what you're supposed to do. But heck, ther head of Gawker was using the same password everywhere. Duh!
Be very careful. The term "identity theft" didn't exist before the creation of the internet. There's a reason for that.
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