This month an individual from Europe known only as Hacker Croll was able to log into a Twitter employee's personal Gmail account.  He gained access after he found a password the employee had used for a different web site; the password for that web site and the Gmail account were the same.  Once in, he was able to see the employee's emails and confidential file attachments.

The problem is that most of us are guilty of the same password no-nos:

  1. We use the same password over and over again, for different sites and applications
  2. We choose simplistic, "easy to remember" passwords that might be easy for a hacker to guess (the most notorious are "password" and "secret")
  3. We keep the same password for years, without changing it

Our system has solid security, but our security won't do you any good if someone is able to guess your password.  To ensure that your account is kept safe, you should change your password regularly.