A number of people worldwide get registered to the car classifieds websites and car trading forums on daily basis for multiple purposes. There are car enthusiasts, who wish to stay updated with what is going around in automotive world. There are others who are into selling and buying of the vehicles and wish to keep a constant check on all latest arrivals to new and used car categories. Some of them could just be “bloggers”, looking to take inspirations for their next write-up. For whatever purpose, you register to these classified platforms and forums, it is very important to manage account privacy including personal information and most importantly the “passwords of your accounts”. Having a unique password is of ultimate importance as hackers are rather active these days to get a chance to sneak into your information especially on the open car classified platforms and trading forums. People who do not tend to focus too much on the security of their online accounts on car forums are certainly in danger of theft of their personal information.
Also read: 7 Tips On How To Buy A Car In UAE
Recent Mass-Theft of 45 Million Accounts on Car Forums by Hackers
As many as 45 Million accounts have been hacked from the most famous car forums recently. It is a gigantic theft of information as the volume of accounts being hacked is huge and clearly depicts the vulnerability of your personal information associated with car forums.
Following are some of the big cars related forums which have suffered from the attack of hackers to steal personal information of their users:
- The Truth About Cars
- VWVortex
- Pirate 4X4
- Focus Fanatics
- Auto Guide
- EvoXForums
It is highly suggested for users of these websites to change their passwords as soon as possible in order to make sure that their important personal information does not further get compromised to hackers.
How such a Big Hacking Activity Took Place
The loopholes behind such a massive hacking activity have not come clear as yet but a strong assumption in this regard suggests cracking of one or two servers as they carried more data than their capacity which gave opportunity to the hackers to steal personal information of users of car forums.
Some other reports suggest that hackers could do it as the method used to store passwords was obsolete. The passwords were hashed and salted with MD5 which is a vulnerable method. Not only the passwords but IP addresses of users, email addresses and site visiting of users were also compromised according to reports.
What does this Extraordinary Hack of Information Teach Us
The information on car classifieds and forums is subjected to potential theft from hackers but even then the stealth of personal information can be avoided with strong password management skills. The importance of having unique passwords and not attaching too much of personal information to these forums gets highlighted whenever such a hack takes place. It is always ideal to take precautionary measures to avoid deleterious consequences. The online information, these days, cannot be safe enough unless you make a conscious effort to protect your data.
Mistakes to Avoid while Creating an Account on Car Forums
You should always keep in mind that a dedicated effort from your side to protect your personal information can save you from potential identity thefts.
Following are some common mistakes committed by the online users when they create an account on car forums or other online platforms:
Reusing of Passwords
It is a common practice and a highly harmful one. Reusing same password on multiple websites and online platforms is never secure. Other than that, using the same password time and time again on same website to secure privacy is also a bad idea. The passwords of different online platforms you use must be clearly different from each other.
Not Using a Unique Password
Setting a password on an online platform is not something you should rush away with. The best practice in this regard is to type a random string of characters and set it as your password. You can also go for a combination of numbers and letters and misspell few letters intentionally. You can also use space between the letters and numbers. These are some strong practices which must be followed for creating passwords for an online account on car forums. The URL mentioned below has a list of to 100 password which were released online to public by hackers of Abode Cloud.
https://stricture-group.com/files/adobe-top100.txt
25 Most Common Passwords
Here are 25 most susceptible passwords in the world that are so common that all a hacker needs to do is to simply run a software bot to try them against an email address / username and majority of the accounts will be accessed. Go through this list and make sure that none of your passwords is listed here, if your password is listed here then change it immediately.
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 12345
- 123456789
- football
- 1234
- 1234567
- baseball
- welcome
- 1234567890
- abc123
- 111111
- 1qaz2wsx
- dragon
- master
- monkey
- letmein
- login
- princess
- qwertyuiop
- solo
- passw0rd
- starwar
Not Avoiding Phishing
Phishing is an online scam to track your bank account information to steal money. Hackers usually do it by sending you fake emails on your email address or by contacting you on your social media accounts. These hackers can impersonate themselves as someone from your bank or a social media authority asking you for your password for authentication or any other purpose which might sound valid to you. Many people readily hand over their passwords and suffer from money theft. You should always give it a second thought if a sender asks you for your password. In such a case, you should contact your administrator directly to confirm status of the email before giving your passwords away.
How to Be Safe When Creating Accounts on Online Car Forums
Hackers always look for vulnerability in systems and lack of attention given to security by the users to get control of their information. One can easily avoid theft of information by avoiding the mistakes mentioned above. The passwords hold key to security of your information and you need to take extra care of them. Along with opting for the unique passwords, one should also look to manage passwords for different online and social media accounts with help of an online password management services such as “LastPass”. The authenticity of a car forum should also be checked before making an account on it. You can do it by reading their privacy policy and the section of Terms and Conditions. Your online account can be next in list for hackers like the recently hacked 45 Million accounts if you are one who does not manage the passwords smartly.
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