Site hacking attempts and passwords

Wed 13 Jan 10 21:55

Site hacking attempts and passwords

A few people have emailed me recently after receiving a notification from the site that someone has tried and failed to access their account. If someone gets their password wrong five times in a row the account is locked for 15 minutes so as far as I know, nobody has yet had their password guessed.

But it's a good reminder of how important it is to choose a password that's secure.

If any of you are using a password that is guessable, I'd recommend that you change it to something less so. For example, if your password is a single common word, even simply inserting a single punctuation character somewhere in it would help enormously. Changing "password" to "pas$word" makes it very much harder for a computer to guess.

I don't know what these hackers might achieve by hijacking someone else's account when they could register their own account easily, but it's better to be safe. If you've got any questions then please let me know.

Last edited by Ben on Sun 24 Jan 10 17:01; edited 1 time in total. [2 %]

Thu 14 Jan 10 11:59

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

There's always some halfwit out there who'll do this kind of stuff for the sake of it.
They're just keeping you on your toes Ben, well done for spotting it.
Your're keeping our borders safe, just like Jack Nicholson in a 'A Few good men'!
Good to see your resto's coming along nicely Ben, looking forward to the finished article sometime in the near future....

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Johnny99

Thu 14 Jan 10 13:01

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

johnny99 wrote (View Post):
Your're keeping our borders safe, just like Jack Nicholson in a 'A Few good men'!

"I eat breakfast three hundred yards away from four thousand Cubans who are trained to kill me. So don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous."

Guess "corvette" isn't a good bet for a password then

Keep up the good work Ben.

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Stephen J Irons
CCCUK Lifetime Member
Corvette Club France
Corvettes of Southern California
NCM Family Member
Stephen & June's Web Site
Red Corvettes Have More Fun!

Apple IS Genisys!
The "Born-Again Greenies" are killing the planet! It's time to wake up and smell the rain-forest burning!

Thu 14 Jan 10 15:09

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

kentvette wrote (View Post):Guess "corvette" isn't a good bet for a password then ....................

The CCCUK website saw unprecedented activity today as hundreds of Forum users rushed to change their password

The new favourite is now "where.would.we.be.without.Ben"

Last edited by Rich on Thu 14 Jan 10 15:12; edited 2 times in total. [12 %]
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Rich Rogers
CCCUK Lifetime Member
2017 Yellow SS Camaro

Thu 14 Jan 10 17:35

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

Perhaps it was a massive co-ordinated cyberattack from the Chinese government, who have made the understandable mistake of confusing 'cccuk' with 'evil capitalist google pigs'

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If God intended us to be vegetarians, why are animals made of meat ?

Thu 14 Jan 10 17:49

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

I use the following password at work:

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofyLondon

I was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

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If God intended us to be vegetarians, why are animals made of meat ?

Thu 14 Jan 10 21:15

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

Without getting tooo serious...

The problem with passwords is that they're easy to forget, and we all have loads of them, so we do something to make them quick, convenient and easy to to remember.

Many years ago, when I were t'lad (although I'm only 36, so it can't be so far away) I used to work for the MOD. There, passwords were 9 characters and in the format (now, bear with me!) :

consonant vowel consonant consonant vowel consonant consonant vowel consonant

so, it meant you could have easy to remember stuff that was kind of poetic (?) like

wet van car
nil son dip
dag dog deg

It's a way to make sure your password isn't obvious (like 'stingray') but had a certain amount of rhythm to it: dib dab dob

Dunno if that helps?

Regards,
FJ

Last edited by fat_jogger on Thu 14 Jan 10 21:18; edited 2 times in total. [2 %]
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18 Cylinders...
10.7 Litres...
12 Tyres...
2 People...
1 House...
Perfect.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention... ...and 2 cats... ...and no kids...

Fri 15 Jan 10 20:25

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

Possibly even

FAT JOG GER

would that be yours

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Don't take life too seriously, after all, your not coming out of it alive.

Fri 15 Jan 10 20:45

One of the reasons the MOD is so bumbling, inefficient and wasteful!
J.C. (1911)

Fri 15 Jan 10 23:00

Re: Site hacking attempts and passwords

BlackZeD wrote (View Post):Possibly even

FAT JOG GER

would that be yours

Brilliant! I've been rumbled.......

Regards,
FJ

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18 Cylinders...
10.7 Litres...
12 Tyres...
2 People...
1 House...
Perfect.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention... ...and 2 cats... ...and no kids...