If you use LivingSocial then you should have received an email over the weekend. The site was hacked with user information including name, email address and date of birth stolen. They also got the passwords for over 50 million users. The passwords were encrypted but just how hard they are to decrypt is arguable. Regardless we would suggest LivingSocial and other sites strongly consider two-factor authentication.
The list of sites that offer multi-factor authentication is growing fast. With sites like Google, Facebook, Dropbox, PayPal and many more offering the extra layer of protection. We’ve used the Google Auhenticator app for a long time. While an extra step is involved we’ll gladly take a couple seconds to help secure our accounts. I think many LivingSocial members feel the same way. Especially now that their personal info has been stolen.
If you currently have a LivingSocial account then go ahead and change your password. If you use the same password for other sites then you’ll want to change those as well. Then we recommend that you ask LivingSocial to implement two-factor authentication to better protect your personal information in the future. An additional tip is to use LastPass to store your passwords. They use the Google Authenticator as well.
Visit VPNSP for more tips on protecting your online privacy and ways to secure your public WiFi connections.
