What was the name of your first pet?
What is your mother's maiden name?
What was your high school mascot?
What was your first car?
If these questions creep you out a bit when signing up for a yet another website user account, consider this: you don't have to use real answers.
The computers you log in to are just comparing strings of characters stored when you signed up with what you type in when challenged - they only know what you tell them, and they don't know if the answers are "correct" or not. The idea, of course, is that using these questions that don't require anything more than your memory makes for a foolproof password recovery/verification device. But with increasing concerns about identity theft, hacking, etc. you may worry about giving up answers to yet another set of personal questions for this convenience. If that's the case, then don't do it!
Instead, use any string of characters you want. High school mascot? Uh3zy$!98. First car? 6%bo88#5. Use the same or different values for each question, it's up to you. Best practice would be to use different strings of characters to answer these questions across all the websites you visit, keeping careful track of each set as you go.
It will take some effort, but if you get uncomfortable every time you render up still more true answers to personal questions, give yourself some peace of mind and give this a try.
No comments:
Post a Comment