I tend to use the same password for a lot of my online fun. To that end, I was a bit concerned when I read recently that Google’s password system was compromised back in December. While the source of the article, NY Times reporter John Markoff, states that no passwords were stolen:
The intruders do not appear to have stolen passwords of Gmail users …
I’m still not feeling warm and fuzzy about the whole situation. As a result, yesterday I changed my GMAIL password. This led me down a complicated route of finding my main Google account, changing the password there, which also showed me that my security settings were pretty old and needed updating. Moments later I was logging back into GMAIL, Calendar, Contacts, Docs, and just about every other Google service I use daily. I thought I was done until I fired up my iPhone and was alerted that my passwords were incorrect.
Thankfully, the entire process of changing my password and then changing it everywhere it happens to be stored took less than 15 minutes. In the end it was definitely something I should have done a long time ago and I’m now in the process of changing my passwords all over the internet.
Sometimes it’s articles like this that make you realize that you’ve been feeling a little too safe online, when you might be completely open to compromise.
Take the 15 minutes, or even less, and change your passwords today.
