It was mine.
It happened years ago when I received dozens of email notices informing me that the postings for my Chanel purses were successful. Not having any recent memory of posting Chanel purses for sale, I thought this was a little strange. I logged into my eBay account, and sure enough, two dozen pretty pink and blue women’s handbags in the range of $2000-$7000 were sitting on my account waiting for bids.
Of course, this was not good. And not just because they weren’t in my color. I used that password for several other sensitive accounts, including the mother of all accounts – my email. So I got ahold of eBay support and the false postings were corrected in no time. In fact, the process of damage control was so snappy and efficient that I wondered just how many of these incidents they must go through each day to have developed such a streamlined process of fixing it.
I really can’t express enough the importance of good passwords. This example is prime. It happens all the time to all sorts of accounts. I don’t know how they got my password, if it was guessed, brute forced, or hacked from a stolen database. But needless to say, my methods of password creation have improved since then.
Okay, so it’s not the greatest story, because in the end it cost me nothing. At least that I know of. But the potential for damage was so much worse than it actually was. For days I was swept up in a wave of paranoia. I changed every password I could think of and made sure they were inordinately complex and each one unique. That was the proverbial light switch for me. I wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Don’t let something bad happen to you before you decide to get on the bandwagon. Check out the article below for a guide to creating strong passwords.
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