The big news of the day is the Gawker hack that happened over the weekend. This has serious implications as many people use the same password for many different sites. Find out if you are at risk.

If you use a standard password for many different sites and you've signed up to comment on Gawker sites (like Lifehacker, Gizmodo, io9, and others, to name a few that I read) then you should change your passwords. Not just on those sites, but on any site where you use the same or a similar password. And you should consider not using the same password on any sites, as shared passwords are not secure. The About.com Net Security Guide has posted a tip to create strong passwords.

A good way to protect yourself is to use a password safe like 1Password (available for Windows, Mac, and iPhone/iPod/iPad — with cloud syncing). With a password safe, you only need to memorize one password — the one to the safe. And the rest can be secure passwords that are 20+ characters long, with special characters and numbers, making them extremely difficult to crack and you don't have to even try to remember them.

How secure are your passwords? originally appeared on About.com Web Design / HTML on Monday, December 13th, 2010 at 14:32:14.

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