‘123456’ Password Is Easy To Be Hacked

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID,JAKARTA—Hotmail users that using common password or ‘123456’ are forced to change in order to increase the security of the webmail service.

Microsoft forbids the usage of “123456” and “ilovecats” password because those passwords can be hacked by dangerous hackers with the trial-and-error technique.

“This new feature will be rolling out soon, and will prevent you from choosing a very common password when you sign up for an account or when you change your password,” Program Manager Microsoft Hotmail, Dick Craddock said.

“If you're already using a common password, you may, at some point in the future, be asked to change it to a stronger password”

The strong password consists of mix of capitals and non-capitals, number and other characters and should not be based on dictionary words or personal information like birthday.

A review reveals that some e-mail that is hacked because users are using bad password. When hackers bypass the system in Gawker, a blog network in AS, the three most general password are “123456”, “password” and “12345678”.

Microsoft also make the password settings stricter like on what Microsoft applies a feature in Hotmail that enables user to report that their friend’s account already haced by a spammer.

Then, Hotmail security system will detect if there is a breaking by checking every incoming e-mail with the message “my friend has been hacked!”. The users that is sending the e-mail are asked to change its password so that spammer can’t access it again.

Microsoft said that the alert system will be given to Google and Yahoo when a Hotmail user recieves spam from Gmail or Yahoo! Mail friends.

“We’ve had this feature turned on for only a few weeks, and we’ve already identified thousands of customers who have had their accounts hacked and helped those customers reclaim their account,” Craddock said.

Posted in: Microsoft