This is why setting up STRONG passwords is vital!!

I set up a new feature on my blog; it is for security and can alert me to failed logins. I am the only one who logs in.

Anyone who tries to login to it is trying to hack my blog.

I googled how hackers choose their victims and it has nothing to do with who we are or what we on online.

The article says this:

1) Scan for open ports
The hacker starts by running a port scan to probe a large range of IP addresses, and then he heads off to bed and lets the scan run all night.

The goal is to find particular open ports to exploit a known or potential vulnerability.

You can read it here: A Hacking Scenario: How Hackers Choose Their Victims

Just in the past 24 hours, there have been attempts to hack my blog at one an hour. The images I am posting are from this morning. There have been several more attempts since then.

The article also covers common sense tips that are helpful.

Thanks for this. I read part way through the article. It just made my head spin. I don't understand the least part of this stuff. Fortunately, I presume (?) there's nothing on my old laptop that would be of any value to anyone. It's just a toy...

I hope things are not causing you too much-upset HappyCrafter. I can not say I am too tech savvy myself so it would all be beyond me. The advice you give about strong passwords is very important that much I know.
Keep well.

Keeping my own computer safe is pretty easy. I don't run any servers and not responsible for anything else than my own connection. Getting actively hacked I feel is rather rare these days. Several years ago I picked up some ransomware somewhere and hadn't gotten rid of it by myself which I did, I would just have resorted to reformatting and starting over. Having up to date backups is such important thing I can't stress it enough.

Being password hacked is quite easy on a forum, and people get surprised when they understand that their quite complex passwords would only take a few hours if that to hack. It doesn't even matter if the forum runs a captcha after a certain number of attempts. To keep an account safe, it needs to go to lockdown mode if a number of attempts is made. Then you should have to only being able to reactivate with a second mean, like email. Sadly, I don't even see sites of this size using the system. Also, they are notoriously bad at updating their forum software.

That is why I for example never give any important information in private message. I actually had the unpleasant experience of someone holding a grudge, password hacking me. It somehow slipped my mind that I had a quite weak password, I was meaning to change it after registering but never did. That person got hold of a lot of info from my private messages. It's not a nice experience to have to say to the person that messaged you (and that you were too stupid to delete the message), that his "secrets" were basically out.

There ARE people who will turn on anyone, just because you're a nice person doesn't mean someone can't hate you with a passion. Or they hate you for being nice. Or whatever.

I'm glad that giants like Gmail don't actually let people into your account if someone logs in from a different device and a different place, OK that did temporarily lock me out from my own account, because when it comes to email people can be really stubborn about wanting to break into it. I send people stuff though email and I have to trust THEIR passwords to hold up. So I'm glad there is a better gatekeeping system there than just password.

Test the strength of your password here.

How Secure Is My Password?

My own result:

It would take a computer about

38 BILLION YEARS

to crack your password

I can live with that.

I tried my mom's email password.

It would take a computer about

1 DAY

to crack your password

Know what I mean? I just changed case of one letter and got

It would take a computer about

8 MONTHS

to crack your password

Quite a difference.

Thank you, everyone, for your feedback!! I use a password manager and it computes the passwords for me. I set the number of letters, characters, upper case and lower case high. Some are over 18 characters long!

My aunt literally yelled her password out loud when we were sitting outside last night. And there were plenty of other people in their backyards. I was like “seriously????”

She even said loudly enough for everyone to hear that she used the same one for everything.

I am glad you uncovered this unfortunate situation before it became an issue. It's tempting for me sometimes to just say "forget it!", and ditch the whole computer thing---but then, I'd be pretty cut off from the world, completely. And that would not be good for me.

This is another helpful reminder of how smart, and aware, we have to be to stay ahead of the bad guys.