Keep Passwords Strong, Secret, and Safe In early 2009 more than
30 high-profile accounts on social-messaging site Twitter were
compromised, including those of President Barack Obama and
Britney Spears. A weak password on a Twitter employee's computer
caused the security breach—a hacker used dictionary attack
software, which systematically tries all words in the program's
"dictionary," beginning with commonly used ones such as names
and places, until it discovers a computer's password or exhausts
its list. This hacker's program discovered the Twitter
employee's password and used administrative tools on the
computer to reset passwords on the high-profile accounts. Then,
in an online forum, the hacker offered anyone access to the
accounts upon request. How could the Twitter employee have
foiled the dictionary attack? By creating a robust password and
guarding it from unauthorized access. Dictionary attacks are
only one way unscrupulous people steal passwords and commit
malicious acts on unsuspecting consumers, a