Make sure 'challenge questions' aren't a backdoor into your account!

The Lookout Mobile Security Blog pointed out something important. Patty talked about the man who hacked hollywood:



"Finding a working e-mail address was a simple process of trial and error. In a Word document, he made a list of random celebrities and, one by one, entered them into Gmail until, days later, an address was finally accepted. Unlocking the account, he knew, would be more difficult. To retrieve a lost password, sites often ask subscribers so-called challenge questions: What’s your mother’s maiden name? What’s your place of birth? Or, in the case of this celebrity, what’s your pet’s name? It was widely known that the hacker who broke into Paris Hilton’s phone had done it with her Chihuahua’s name, Tinkerbell. If her dog’s name was easily available online, so too, Chaney figured, were other clues."



So the lesson is that strong passwords are important, and different ones for different sites, but just as important is choosing security questions that are not predictable. Here is the full post