Here's a good strategy for making it less likely that hackers will be able to access your password by guessing the answers to your security questions: lie.
I read that the hacker who got into Hilary Clinton's account had a strategy for figuring out people's security questions (which are designed to show that a request to change an account's password is really coming from the person who owns it).
For the question, "What was the name of the street where you lived as a child?" he went on Facebook to find out where the person went to school, went to a map, and tried out all the names of streets in the vicinity of that school.
Often the question is, "What was the name of your first pet?" and sometimes people post childhood pictures on Facebook or other social sites ("Me at 10, with Fluffy").
The solution is to lie on your security questions.
The name of your first pet? Kim Kardashian
The street where you lived as a child? ScrewYouHackers Avenue
Your favorite vegetable? Donald Trump
You get the idea.
PASSWORDS
Of course you shouldn't use the same password for more than one site, and it's wise to change the passwords occasionally.
I'm trying out a password app at the moment, the simplest one I've found, and if it works well, I'll report back here.
SAFE HOSTING
As you may have read in one of my previous posts, all my sites were hacked recently.
The hackers didn't use passwords, they gained backdoor access to the server on Hostgator.
Most of the sites are now back up, but it has been very disruptive. As I result, I've done some research on the best ways to help you avoid falling prey to this kind of attack. I've moved to a different hosting company and a different approach. I'm still testing those at the moment, but I'll report on those here, too, in case you may find the information useful.
