Newsletter Archives

• No Crappy Passwords — Secure passwords, no password book

  Posted on October 17, 2022 at 02:44 CDT by Deanna McElveen • Comment in the Forums

  FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

  

  By Deanna McElveen

  You have a password book. You know the one. That ruffled little book with the cover falling off and marked-out passwords dating back to the Clinton administration.

  What would happen right now if that book got destroyed or stolen, perhaps along with the computer that remembers all those passwords?

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.42.0, 2022-10-17).

  Freeware Spotlight Deanna's Freeware Spotlight, encryption, Newsletters, Passwords

• Microsoft says forget your passwords!

  Posted on September 27, 2021 at 02:40 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  In a major push, Microsoft is advocating moving away from passwords and instead using different authentication methods.

  The headline: “The passwordless future is here for your Microsoft account.” Is it?

  Here’s what Microsoft has to say in its security blog about a move away from passwords.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.37.0 (2021-09-27).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Multifactor Authentication, Passwords, Patch Lady Posts, PINs, Security

• Should you give Microsoft all of your passwords?

  Posted on May 17, 2021 at 01:01 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  A new feature of Microsoft’s Edge browser is causing our readers to ask, “Is this MS initiative going to place our account info at risk?” Should Web users allow their browsers to store usernames and passwords for sites they must sign in to?

  You’re not going to like the answer, but it’s: Yes and No.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.18.0 (2021-05-17).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft, Passwords, Public Defender

• Is the cloud unsafe?

  Posted on May 10, 2021 at 01:00 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Using the cloud isn’t always a bad thing.

  During this year of the pandemic, we’ve pivoted from doing many things in person to many things online. In my industry, one of the key changes is moving from in-person meetings to online meetings via services such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Another is doing more and more financial transactions online, including accounting for them.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.17.0 (2021-05-10).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Cloud, On Security, Passwords, Patch Lady Posts

• New PC? Lost your Microsoft account password?

  Posted on April 26, 2021 at 01:10 CDT by Ben Myers • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.15 • 2021-04-26

  MICROSOFT

  

  By Ben Myers

  If your dog ate your Microsoft account credentials, Microsoft will welcome you to the tenth circle of hell.

  You probably don’t want to hear this, because you’ve been nagged this way before; but make sure you have a safe record of your user credentials for every online account you maintain. Just do it.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.15.0 (2021-04-26).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.15.F (2021-04-26).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft 365 AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Microsoft, Passwords

• Easiest way to make it easy for attackers

  Posted on November 18, 2020 at 21:37 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-worst-passwords-of-2020-show-we-are-as-lazy-about-security-as-ever/

  We are really bad at picking passwords.  Truly we are.  I’ve also seen that many folks use the same passwords in many web sites.  So attackers only have to get a data dump from one hacked database and then they can try to reuse these passwords in other places.

  Do yourself a big favor:  Over the holiday season see if you can 1. pick better passwords (passphrases) and 2. see if the site allows you to add two factor authentication.

  Windows Security 2FA, Passphrases, Passwords, Patch Lady Posts, Two-factor authentication

• Changing my mind about Facebook

  Posted on September 23, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  SECURITY

  Amy Babinchak

  Undoubtedly, you’ve seen the invitation to sign in to a website with your Facebook account. And you ask yourself: “How can that be safe?”

  Using one account sign-in for everything goes against a basic tenet of password security. And you’re trusting Facebook to keep your credentials secure — and not share them. (Sharing is core to Facebook.) And yet you watch as all your friends get hacked and cloned while using conventional sign-ins.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.34.0 (2019-09-23).

  On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Facebook, Passwords, Sign-in security

• Microsoft: Forced password changes don’t work

  Posted on April 25, 2019 at 15:30 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Yesterday, Sergiu Gatlan at BleepingComputer wrote about Microsoft’s newfound antipathy to forced frequent password changes.

  You know the problem: Every 30 or 60 or 90 days, you’re forced to change your password – and the new one can’t match the last 12 of them. Your solution is probably the same as mine:

  Pass1
  Pass2
  Pass3
  Pass4

  and so on. With the way technology has changed (I hesitate to use the term “improved”), frequently changed short passwords don’t hold a candle to LongPasswordsThatYouCanEasilyRemember. Even old LongPasswordsThatYouCanEasilyRemember work better than Shorter1, Shorter2, Shorter3. Forcing you to change them every 30 days only pushes you toward less secure passwords.

  Of course, you use a password manager such as LastPass or OnePass or KeePass. In that case, changing your password every 30 days is just a pain in the neck. No security improvement at all.

  The topic has come up because Microsoft just released its newly revised “Security baseline” for Win10 version 1903. It’s still marked Draft, but should be solidified before too long. Here’s what MS says:

  When humans pick their own passwords, too often they are easy to guess or predict. When humans are assigned or forced to create passwords that are hard to remember, too often they’ll write them down where others can see them. When humans are forced to change their passwords, too often they’ll make a small and predictable alteration to their existing passwords, and/or forget their new passwords. When passwords or their corresponding hashes are stolen, it can be difficult at best to detect or restrict their unauthorized use.

  Bravo and huzzah!

  Windows Patches/Security forced change, Passwords
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