The Adobe data breach just keeps taking and taking. Was your password one of those that was leaked, or do you even know? If you received an email from Adobe, chances are you may not have opened it, thinking it was spam. It could have been a notice telling you that your password was stolen.
Image source: Hackersnewsbulletin.com
You are probably thinking that only simple passwords such as “password” or “123456” can be cracked open by hackers, but that is not the case. My password was hacked in the Adobe breach and it is an original password created based around the name of my old dog who died a few years ago. No one could have guessed the combination of letters and numbers, but the other thing that got leaked in the hack was password hints.
The data breach, which happened more than a month ago, affected over 38 million accounts. Hackers stole source code which contained credit card information and thousands of Adobe IDs and passwords. The passwords were believed to be encrypted, but hackers were able to access some of them in plain text and managed to break the algorithm.
Image source: Selil.com
For those people who use the same password across the Internet, all those accounts are at risk. We often write about document security and most of us use some kind of Adobe product. How many people use PDF documents or use Adobe Photoshop? Sure, Adobe sent me an email suggesting I reset my password, but I have to admit that I had used that password on more than one account, even though I know better.
If you believe your password was compromised and you didn’t notice an email from Adobe, you can run your email address through LastPass’s checker. It will tell you if your password is one of the ones compromised and also provide assistance on how to manage this information.
LastPass is a free tool that manages all of your usernames and passwords, so you don’t have to remember them. That way, you can create a different password for every account. You can check out all of your passwords to make sure that they are strong.
Image source: Threattracksecurity.com
You should change your Adobe password right now if you haven’t done so. Adobe isn’t the only corporation that has had to deal with this issue. If you used the same password for your bank account or other important sites that contain personal identifying information, your entire online life is at risk.
Facebook is mining the breached passwords and letting their users know whether they should change them. Facebook has faced security issues in the past. If you’ve used the same Adobe password on Facebook, it’s time to go in and change that one too. You are vulnerable to all kinds of threats every time you log in to your accounts, but you can do a bit of risk management by using strong passwords with a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.
When you are using any form of communication online, you need to be proactive. PDF documents are still safe, but you should be sending them through a secure email and document delivery service. You should also be storing those PDF documents in a secure content management system.
Those comments and photos you only want your friends to see on Facebook are just as important to you as the your credit card and banking data, or your business communications. That’s your identity and you can’t afford to lose it to a criminal. Identity theft can ruin your life and it can take years to recover.
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