Clio

Earlier this week the technology news site TechCrunch reported that they’d received numerous confidential internal documents that were siphoned from the corporate servers at Twitter thanks to a security breach perpetrated by a hacker operating under the moniker “Hacker Croll”. News of this sparked a frenzy of finger-pointing that implicated a major flaw in Twitter’s security infrastructure as the root cause behind the unauthorized access. As it turns out, Twitter’s only security problem was the use of weak passwords. Allegedly one of the passwords used to gain access to the corporate network was literally set to “password”, essentially laying a welcome mat for any snooping user or malicious intruder.

Although an unfortunate outcome for the executives over at Twitter, this whole episode serves as a warning to web service users everywhere of the importance of strong passwords – especially where sensitive data is concerned. Even the most impenetrable security measures and safeguards are easily undone when users select simple, short or easily-guessable passwords.

So, what can you do to make sure you don’t end up in the hot-seat along with Twitter? Wikipedia and Psynch provide excellent guidelines for selecting strong passwords. For those wanting a little help with crafting something secure, a number of free services are available online including: PC Tools, GoodPassword, and StrongPasswordGenerator among others.

Ultimately, the burden of information security rests on users as much as service providers, and, while it’s essential that the systems housing the data be secured to the greatest extent possible, it’s equally important that users remember the critical role passwords play in the scope of quality security. If something is worth protecting with a password, it’s also probably worth going to the extra effort to ensure that the password fulfills its purpose to guard sensitive information from unauthorized access.