Breaking into Twitter accounts with a dictionary password attack

Last week we discussed how a hacker was able to break into the Twitter accounts of celebrities. It turned out that a Twitter employee, who had administrative access to members’ accounts, had her account broken into because she chose a dictionary word for her own password.

What password had she chosen? “Happiness”.

We’ve discussed before that it’s not a good idea at all to use a dictionary word for any password you have.

Below you’ll find a video I made last night, making the serious point in a lighthearted way…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the anti-virus industry having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent security analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of computer security, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter at @gcluley, on Mastodon at @[email protected], or drop him an email.