FBI to Investigate Gmail Attacks

Now is a good time to change your password for your GMail account (and others as well).

According to the New York Times, the FBI is to investigate allegations by Google that China was the origin of clandestine attacks on its Gmail service. Apparently, attempts were made to steal passwords and monitor email of several hundred people, including senior government officials in the United States.

This story is a good reminder that changing passwords to your accounts on a regular basis is a good practice to help minimize the risk of someone hijacking your account. There are several programs to assist you with keeping up with your passwords. You should not use the same password with multiple kinds of accounts. That way, if someone does get a hold of a password, they don’t have a master key into your other accounts.

A program like 1Password can not only generate complex and difficult passwords but, remember them for you. If you are not familiar with the program, you should look at it. Password vault programs like this are extremely helpful because the complexity of remembering different passwords is passed to the program. Just don’t forget the password to the program that remembers your passwords.

You can check out the program from the iTunes store here.