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"    Photo: FilmMagic Psycho weather may be dominating the news right now, but cyber-security is taking a close second. First the Target breach, then the Snapchat hack, and now this: Guccifer, who hacked his way not only to George W. Bush&amp;#039;s private self-portraits (the former president paints himself in the shower, in case you missed that) and Candace Bushnell&amp;#039;s upcoming book pages but also\u2014?) Obviously, the guy&amp;#039;s got a thing for targeting the rich and famous. And it might seem like some guy targeting Hollywood celebs (Steve Martin), Washington policy makers (Colin Powell), and New York executives (Tina Brown) isn&amp;#039;t relevant to those with sub-20,000 Twitter followers or sub-$2 million bank accounts. But it does matter, because of Guccifer&amp;#039;s MO, which should frighten everyone. Related: Why We Need Women Who Code Apparently, he&amp;#039;s not just using hi-tech software to crack people&amp;#039;s passwords or skillfully breaking into the back-end of these sites. Instead, Guccifer&amp;#039;s hacks into accounts everywhere\u2014from Twitter, to AOL, to Flickr\u2014by taking educated guesses at the security questions you fill out when you sign up for an account. The ones that seem sooo specific to you, but are really very generic. How would anyone ever know my first pet was named Cocoa? Maybe because pretty much everyone names their chocolate lab that. It&amp;#039;s also easy to find my own mother&amp;#039;s maiden name with a cursory Google search, and\u2014should I not admit this on the Internet?\u2014I use that as a security question all the time. Yikes. Ultimately, if you&amp;#039;re looking to get smart about your own cyber-security, the news makes a strong case for having coded answers to those &amp;quot;Where were you born?&amp;quot; sort of things. Often it&amp;#039;s just two of those questions answered correctly and boom!: Someone can access your account and reset your password entirely. Even if you&amp;#039;re not famous, that&amp;#039;s pretty terrifying. Related: A Closer Look at Snapchat&amp;#039;s Evan Spiegel "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/tech/news/a24160/guccifer/>