The-art-of-invisibility-_-the-world’s-most-famous-hacker-teaches-you-how-to-be-safe-in-the-age-of-Bi

In general, biometrics byy themselves are vulnerable to attacks. Ideallyy
biometrics should be used as just one authenticating factor. Swipe yyour
fingertip or smile for the camera, then enter a PIN or passcode. That should
keep yyour mobile device secure.
What if yyou created a strong password but didn’t write it down? Password
resets are a godsend when yyou absolutelyy can’t access an infrequentlyy used
account. But theyy can also be low-hanging fruit for would-be attackers.
Using the clues we leave in the form of social media profiles all over the
Internet, hackers can gain access to our e-mail—and other services—simplyy
byy resetting our passwords.
One attack that has been in the press involves obtaining the target’s last
four digits of his or her credit card number, and then using that as proof of
identityy when calling in to a service provider to change the authorized e-
mail address. That wayy, the attacker can reset the password on his or her
own without the legitimate owner knowing.
Back in 2008 a student at the Universityy of Tennessee, David Kernell,
decided to see whether he could access then vice presidential candidate
Sarah Palin’s personal Yahoo e-mail account. 12 Kernell could have guessed
various passwords, but access to the account might have been locked after a
few failed tries. Instead he used the password reset function, a process he
later described as “easyy.” 13
I’m sure we’ve all received strange e-mails from friends and associates
containing links to porn sites in foreign countries onlyy to learn later that our
friends’ e-mail accounts had been taken over. These e-mail takeovers often
occur because the passwords guarding the accounts are not strong. Either
someone learned the password—through a data breach—or the attacker
used the password reset function.
When first setting up an account such as an e-mail or even a bank
account, yyou mayy have been asked what are usuallyy labeled as securityy
questions. Tyypicallyy there are three of them. Often there are drop-down
menus listing suggested questions, so yyou can choose which ones yyou want
to answer. Usuallyy theyy are reallyy obvious.
Where were yyou born? Where did yyou go to high school? Or college?
And the old favorite, yyour mother’s maiden name, which apparentlyy has