Password breaches/data leaks

[Ambleton]

Has there been a flurry of big data breaches/cyber attacks recently?

I've had several notifications recently of dodgy st and log in attempts.

The first was from Twitter last week or the week before saying my account had been frozen due to unusual activity. I created it in 2012 as, at the time, it was the best way to get in touch with a person at virgin media. I haven't used it since. I logged on, changed the password and then deleted the account.

Then on Tuesday I received a push notification and email from Amazon (different password altogether) asking for the second part of dual authorisation. Someone had used my password and was trying to log on with an IP from South America. Naturally I got in touch with amazon who confirmed it was genuine and I changed my password immediately.

I woke up in the night and realised that I used the same password for PayPal and one of my email addresses (I know I know).

Anyway, I've just spent the last 6hrs or so going through all my logins for absolutely everything and giving them unique and random passwords using a password generator and vault.

So, a bit of a word of warning. Don't use the same password for multiple things! And dont forget to change your passwords periodically!

Problem with a single password is if you have a "breach", then you have to change EVERYTHING, which is a pain in the ass with as many log ons for stuff we have nowadays.

[somouk]

Have a check on https://intelx.io/ and haveibeenpwned to see if your data has been leaked.

[anonymous-user]

it's so rife now, I reckon more people than not have had a data breach somewhere along the line.

[the-norseman]

somouk said:

Have a check on https://intelx.io/ and haveibeenpwned to see if your data has been leaked.

Never heard of Intelx before but I use HIBP a lot to check.