If you’re concerned that you might have been included in the massive data leak perpetrated by the short-lived hacking group Lulzsec, I have a couple of web sites for you to visit.
Here they are:
http://gizmodo.com/5815551/find-out-if-your-personal-data-is-part-of-lulzsecs-grand-finale
https://shouldichangemypassword.com/
And if you have been leaked, you absolutely should go and change your passwords right now. Not just your e-mail passwords, but your bank account, eBay, and anything else that involves money. The database is out in the wild now, and other hackers and groups are using the information, so even though Lulzsec is defunct, the aftereffects will last for years.
One factoid that should frighten you: I know someone who collects passwords, and he merged the Lulzsec database with his own collection. If I remember the conversation correctly, nearly 60 percent of the passwords people were using were passwords he already had. Although the number of unique passwords you can type on a standard 104-key keyboard gets into huge numbers well beyond the numbers I know words to express–numbers that make the national debt look like whatever is in my son’s piggy bank–the actual number of passwords that humanity actually uses is much, much smaller.
I’ll have more on the topic of passwords very soon.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.