Word: password
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...Think carefully before you answer. The question is from the password retrieval system for Virgin America's Elevate frequent-flyer program, one of several a user may be prompted to answer in order to verify his or her identity. But it's not just Richard Branson's own quirky take on the standard "What's your mother's maiden name?" query, widely used for verification purposes by many banks and e-mail services. These days, security questions are getting more creative because they have to. As we make more and more personal information freely available online via our blogs, Facebook...
...Vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin discovered that last week when someone hacked into her Yahoo! e-mail account, gov.palin@yahoo.com, after typing her username into Yahoo! and clicking "Forgot your ID or password?" According to an account of the breach by someone claiming to be the perpetrator, here's what happened next...
...Hence, the growing trend toward more arcane and occasionally bizarre password retrieval questions. Sign up for an MSN/Hotmail account and you can choose from "Who was your best childhood friend?" "What was your grandfather's occupation?" or "Who is your favorite historical person?" The questions for a Citibank MasterCard account are even odder, bordering on the absurd: "Who was your archrival growing up?" "If you needed a new first name, what would it be?" and "If you could control your height, how tall would you be?" Even if a person can answer those questions, there's no guarantee the answer...
...Last year, the Federal Communications Commission passed a rule prohibiting landline and cellular phone companies from asking biographical questions for password retrieval, following the disclosure that computer company Hewlett-Packard was using the information to gain access to industry journalists' phone records - a technique known as "pretexting." Still, e-mail providers like Yahoo! and many online banking services haven't stopped using biographical questions, even as much of this information is finding its way online...
...shouldn't judge her on her ability to make security-related decisions ... This is not about Yahoo! This is about industry failure." (Jakobsson is currently developing a security system that prompts users to answer a battery of preference questions when they establish an account. If they forget their password, users must answer a certain percentage of their preference questions correctly to retrieve...