It's another day and another scam email lands in my email box trying to extort bitcoins out of me, giving me 24 hours to make payment else supposed footage of compromising activities grabbed from a web cam will be immediately made available to the whole wide world. And before you ask No, I don't have a web cam connected to my computer.

Unlike most scam emails this one lists a password that looks familiar that I may have used in the past. So I do a search for the password to see what service it belongs to (if any) as I have followed the rule for decades now to always use DIFFERENT passwords for each site.

And what service pops up? LinkedIn!

Apparently, LinkedIn was hacked in 2016 with ALL of its store of passwords and email addresses being offered for sale by scammers on the dark web.

So I did a further check to see if my primary email address gets flagged in any other hacks and leaks by using the site https://haveibeenpwned.com/

Which reveals 7 breaches of security.

Coupon Mom / Armor Games
Exactis
Onliner Spambot
Verifications.io
You've Been Scraped
Stratfor
LinkedIn

That just goes to show that You MUST use DIFFERENT PASSWORDS for EACH SERVICE!

So if you use the same password across multiple services then you are just asking for trouble! DON'T DO IT because at least one of the services you use WILL have been HACKED at some point and thus your password has been compromised with criminals likely testing to see if they can use it to gain entry to other more valuable services.

By Nadeem Walayat

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes.

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