Palin email "hack" underscores need for stronger authentication

User names and passwords aren't secure, and momentum continues to build across the industry to solve this problem in a manageable way.

Last week we saw the kind of email hack of a prominent public figure -- vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin -- that many of us in the security industry saw coming for some time.

According to media reports, a student in Tennessee allegedly “socially engineered” the password re-set on Palin's personal Yahoo email account by allegedly using Wikipedia to find answers to such questions as: “What is your postal code? What's your birthday? Where did you meet your spouse?”

Half of Wasilla, Alaska knew these answers. And for those outside of that small Alaskan city, anyone with access to a computer and a search engine could have easily found them.

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