The Geeks' Den: Hotmail

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Showing posts with label Hotmail. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hotmail. Show all posts

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Facebook “Kata Laluan Tepat” and strong passwords

I decided today that I need to do a security audit of all of my internet accounts and set new passwords to much stronger ones. So first of all I changed my hotmail account, and then onto my Facebook account. Once I set the second password, in green letters the words:

Kata Laluan Tepat

Appeared below my password. What the heck is this? Apparently it means:

Right Password

In Malaysian, according to http://www.citcat.com/. On Yahoo! Answers others have said it means “Exact Phrase” taken from http://dictionary.bhanot.net/ but I could not find that reference anywhere on that site. So I am going with the Citcat translation. (Anyone who can actually speak Malaysian who can clear this up it would be great to hear from you).

Back to more secure passwords, to make a stronger password I am using some of the below principles in order to make it more difficult for a hacker to get into my accounts:

  • a minimum eight characters
  • a mix of upper and lower case letters
  • at least one numeral, and
  • at least one non-alpha numeric character—for example, a symbol.
  • Avoid using dictionary or foreign words
  • Change your password at least twice a year
  • Avoid passwords like your name or business name
  • Use different passwords for different systems

While I am not using cryptographic strength or ascii passwords, (I would never be able to remember them), the passwords will hopefully be able to slow most people down.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Windows Live (Msn) Messenger Spam

Over the past few months I've been receiving a lot of MSN Spam from friends via MSN Messenger. Examples of it include:


Most of these messages are being sent whilst the sender is actually offline, they have probably inadvertantly clicked on a website link which has sent them to a false MSN.com, Hotmail.com, or Live.com website which they have logged in on using their email and password. This has then been sent directly to the spammer which have now been logging in and spamming all the people on your contact lists.

The best way to stop this is to sign in the the correct Website where your msn passport is. ie msn.com, hotmail.com or live.com...even yahoo.com dependant on which messenger program you are using. Then change your password.

For peace of mind, also run a scan on your PC for Malware, Spyware and Virus's.