ReportWire

Tag: Password

  • Parenting 101: 5 Lessons to keep kids safe online for the new school year

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    The back-to-school season is exciting – new knowledge, new digital tools, and new discoveries. But it also brings higher cybersecurity risks for both schools and children. Cybersecurity experts are urging children, parents, and school communities to stay extra alert during this period.

    “The back-to-school period requires additional efforts to keep children and school communities safe online. A new beginning means new digital tools, online searches, and registrations for learning platforms. All of that increases cyber risks that must be taken seriously,” said Karolis Arbačiauskas, head of product at NordPass, in a media release

    A new study by NordPass, in collaboration with NordStellar, reveals a worrying truth: many educational institutions are still using shockingly weak passwords to protect sensitive data. Entries like “123456”, “Edifygroup@1”, and “principal@2021” appeared frequently, showing a widespread reliance on predictable or outdated credentials that are easy for hackers to guess.

    This is why the back-to-school season is the perfect moment to talk to children about cyber hygiene – the dos and don’ts in digital environments – and to help them build strong habits for digital security and privacy. “Learning about cybersecurity can be fun. Many families of cybersecurity professionals make it a game – they host a small party with snacks and guide their children through five simple but essential exercises,” said Arbačiauskas.

    Cybersecurity experts advise to take these steps to preserve your own cybersecurity and that of your family members (it can also be used as inspiration for your family’s Cyber Party):

    • Create strong and unique passwords. Make sure every account in your family – whether it’s yours, your parents’, your significant other’s, or your children’s – uses a strong and unique password. The easiest way to do it? Use a trusted password manager to generate, store, and share them securely.
    • Turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA). Add an extra layer of security wherever you can, especially to access school portals, email accounts, and social apps. MFA helps keep hackers out even if a password gets breached – and they get breached more often than you think. A recent study by NordPass revealed that many educational institutions still use shockingly weak passwords.
    • Update devices and apps. Keep phones, tablets, and laptops up to date with the latest software. Outdated apps can contain vulnerabilities that hackers take advantage of to get backdoor access into your device. Updates patch these security holes so that cybercriminals can no longer exploit them.
    • Talk about phishing. Discuss cybersecurity with your family and why it matters. Teach them to never click suspicious links or open unknown attachments – especially in emails or messages claiming to be from the school. When in doubt, verify with the sender by using a website checker.
    • Adjust privacy settings. Review and tighten privacy settings on social media, online games, and school platforms. Limit what personal info is publicly visible and who can contact your kids online.

    – JC

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  • Proton’s new password monitor update will scour the dark web on your behalf

    Proton’s new password monitor update will scour the dark web on your behalf

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    Proton’s encrypted password manager, Proton Pass, has received a significant update . This comes in the form of a new toolset called Pass Monitor, which will alert users of account weaknesses and data breaches.

    This is done automatically and the system will even guide users through solutions in the event of a data leak from a third-party service, . It also scours the dark web and alerts people if Proton addresses, email aliases and up to ten custom email addresses have been leaked and used for nefarious purposes. If this happens, you’ll get an alert so you can take action.

    Pass Monitor includes a password health feature that flags any weak or reused passwords that could use an update. The inactive two-factor authentication portion of the toolset is an additional layer of security that identifies various accounts that offer the option for 2FA.

    Finally, the company’s bringing its into Pass Monitor. The service uses a combination of AI and human analysts to detect and block account takeover attacks.

    The password health and 2FA checks are available to free users, but monitoring of the dark web and Proton Sentinel are only for paying members. Luckily, Pass Plus memberships are currently . These new tools, available on Windows, Android and iOS, will roll out to current users in the “next few days.”

    Proton is actually a fairly new entrant in the password security game, as the password manager . The company is more famous for its stellar VPN software, which topped .

    This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.

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    Lawrence Bonk

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  • The Password Game Is A Perfect Recreation Of An Online Disaster

    The Password Game Is A Perfect Recreation Of An Online Disaster

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    Indie developer Neal Agarwal, better known as Neal.fun, makes video games that are very small but also very good. His latest, The Password Game, is the perfect example: it takes the hell of coming up with a password for an app or site’s account and somehow turns it into something as far from hell as possible.

    The Week In Games: What’s Releasing Beyond Lara Croft

    It begins like the worst part of all account-creating processes does: asking you to create a password. Only the password you choose doesn’t have enough upper case letters. Then when it does there aren’t enough special characters. Then it’s not long enough. Then it’s too long. And all the while it never told you any of this in the first place, it just thought you would know.

    “Just let Google choose your password then, why are you complaining about this in a blog about a little video game” OK sure but then a lot of the time Google saves it with the wrong username attached, or the weird app URL doesn’t match the name of the company/site and it’s a pain in the ass to find even the saved password again, and basically what I’m saying is that I used to laugh at my parents for writing down all their internet passwords in a literal notebook but now I can see maybe they had a point all along.

    ANYWAY, sorry, this game doesn’t have the Google/saving drama attached, but it does definitely cover the password creation process itself in much cleaner and more concise detail than this post has turned out to be managing, so if you’ve got a spare few minutes today—and its playable in a browser so you can do this even if you’re at work—you can check it out here.

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    Luke Plunkett

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