A recent news story reminds us that it might be time to change your passwords again!

Today, C*news, a Russian news agency, reported that almost five million Gmail usernames and passwords were posted to a Russian Bitcoin security forum. The list has since been removed, and there’s no evidence that Google itself was infiltrated. But this incident should be a reminder to you: when was the last time you changed your key passwords?

The credentials posted in the forum were a collection of username/password combinations phished and hacked over the past few years. Researchers speculate that as many as 40% of these Google passwords were changed by the account owners before the list was posted. But that would leave 60%–3,000,000–Google accounts at risk!

Even though most of the stolen Google credentials were from Russia, this incident should remind you about good password management:

  • Strong passwords are of the utmost importance!
  • From time to time, change your passwords! If you have somehow snuck through the cracks and haven’t created or changed your UDelNet password since April 8, 2014, change it now.
  • Incidents like this one explain why security experts suggest that you change your passwords from time to time. Hackers often take months to use the credentials they steal from a website. If you’ve changed your password since the theft, your account should be safe.
  • Use different passwords for your different accounts so that, if your login credentials are stolen from one site, hackers can’t access all your accounts using the stolen password.

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