Scenario
You wake up one morning only to find out your Facebook or Twitter or Instagram etc password and email has been changed with you completely locked out of it.
How?
Well was Facebook or Twitter or Instagram etc itself hacked? Answer: Maybe /Could Be but truth is there is a very slim chance of this happening say 0.3% chance. Want to hear the hard truth? If yes then there is a 99.7% chance you aided this hack.
How could i have caused this?
Let’s tackle just one way you might have caused this heavy blow. That one password you always use in all your online registration forms has been compromised somehow.
Let’s Break This Down.
Not all websites you get signed up on is secure. In fact an 8 year old could easily hack into a website that has no SSL security or a properly configured database management system. So with this assuming you get signed up on a not so secured website, Remember you use the same passwords for all your website registrations and whenever that website gets hacked that’s trouble for you. How is that trouble for me? It isn’t my website is it? Isn’t it the website owners problem if they get hacked? Answer: I will try as much as I can to speak with simplicity so you will understand how catastrophic this can be. Internet security has come a long way and has seen numerous advanced tools, Same tools used by ethical hackers and the bad guys.
Once your info has been discovered on a hacked website database that info can be used to scan several other websites to see if there is a match in their database. Just like how metals get attracted to a magnet same way one compromised website can cause you to lose all other accounts with other websites. For example you get signed up on a website for free daily motivational quotes and this website happens to get hacked and database now in the hands of hackers. They find out your username is JBdrew and your password is Destiny34(@Q. What they do is first extract all the user credentials into one notebook file and run a special scan using advanced testing tools like Sentry MBA etc.
Sentry MBA
These tools are pre-configured with the various login pages of many websites eg. chase.com Facebook.com walmart.com among others. Once they load and scan the credentials, matching accounts will automatically be detected and isolated as successful. For instance they load 500,000 usernames and passwords and 3,000 of them are successful it means all 3,000 account owners used the same username and password they used on the hacked site as well as the scanned site. Using same username and password alone can cause you financial losses beyond your imagination. It can ruin you in full in some instances. There is a chance you will lose your social media handles, online banking,etc due to this alone. No matter how complex your password is it is still compromised as long as you keep using it on all your registration forms.
Solution
It is 100% simple to prevent this type of catastrophe. Yes it is. Just make sure you use different passwords on all websites. It is far better to lose on one website than to lose on all websites. Take this very seriously, up to 80% of hackers rely on this method to get bank logs, Store logs, Social media logs etc.
