This annoys me: I found a site with my favorite password on it.
This is a problem since the combination of letters and numbers is absolutely unique. The only way it would show up on the web is if I put it there or a site's security was breached.
In this case, it looks like the latter since the Chinese site displaying it has a long list of terms that are clearly passwords ranging from things that are extremely obvious to rather complex terms.
One thing I noticed was that many passwords seem to be simple variations on what's presumably the username. For example, a password like johndoe1 could probably be tied to a username "johndoe." That's still pretty vague, but it's not nearly so vague when the password + 1 is a much less common name.
To me, this marks a good time to switch up passwords. Nothing that I'm aware of has been compromised, but why wait for that, eh?
In case you're wondering, my new password will not be edkohler1.
1. Posted by: Tara (PassPack) on August 23, 2007 3:44 PM:
Unfortunately, making "strong" passwords is becoming more and more complex of an operation - especially since you need a completely unique password for every site or service that you use.
I wrote a quick post on it over at my company blog. I run an online password manager, so there's clearly a product plug in there, but the information should be useful regardless.
Choosing Passwords, Long is Strong
Cheers,
Tara Kelly
PassPack Founding Partner