washingtonpost.com

Last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin suffered a cruel little invasion of privacy: Somebody logged into the Alaska governor's Yahoo account and browsed through her mail. This person, still unknown, apparently pulled this off by guessing the answer to the security question on Yahoo's password-reset page: "Where did you meet your spouse?"

Most of us aren't public figures whose lives are chronicled in books, newspaper articles and Wikipedia, but the same issue applies. If somebody else can answer your security question -- a common back door offered for users who forget their login and can't get it e-mailed to a secondary e-mail address -- he doesn't need to guess your password or steal it with a phishing scam or a keystroke-logging virus.

You can minimize that risk by choosing a question with an answer that's only in your head, not on the Web. (Remember, "the Web" includes whatever's on your profile at Facebook, MySpace or another social-networking site, even if that information isn't shown to strangers.)
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makes me wonder about our nuclear arsenal codes! j/k
flyingimam Reviewed by flyingimam on . Palin's email invasion: internet 101 washingtonpost.com Last week, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin suffered a cruel little invasion of privacy: Somebody logged into the Alaska governor's Yahoo account and browsed through her mail. This person, still unknown, apparently pulled this off by guessing the answer to the security question on Yahoo's password-reset page: "Where did you meet your spouse?" Most of us aren't public figures whose lives are chronicled in books, newspaper articles and Wikipedia, but the Rating: 5