Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Make sure you've got a process in place to at least semi-regularly audit your list of "throwaway accounts".

A long time ago, I signed up to PerkMonks for some unimportant reason. Since it was unimportant then (and still is now) I used my then-standard "throwaway login". Sometime later, and before it became "a thing", I signed up for this new "microblgging service" using my "throwaway login" - it was called Twitter - nobody much had heard of it back then. Fastforward 3 years or so… Twitter had become, while not _important_, at least a place where I consider my personal reputation is important. Shortly after the PerkMonks user database got exposed (with it's cleartext passwords! facepalm!), I got an early morning text message from a friend "Acai berry spam from your Twitter account! Ha ha!" (Thanks Colin… For both the heads-up and the deserved ridicule)

If you're using the same "throwaway" credentials in a bunch of places you consider "unimportant" - make sure you upgrade those to properly secure credentials when the importance of those places changes.

Or better still, get 1Password/KeyPass/LastPass/WhatEver and stop doing that…




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: