Forcing people to change passwords regularly does tend to reduce overall password security because people tend to get very tired of the process and will start to pick really poor passwords. That doesn't mean you should never change your password - changing your password from time to time, as long as its a strong password that you do not use anywhere else - does improve your security. That said, in terms of user security, the most important factor is not using the same password on multiple websites. After that, comes using a strong password (for example using a password manager so your password is randomly generated). Then comes 2FA if available for your account. I would rank changing your password from time to time a distant fourth - still a good idea - but the first two things are much more important in my mind.
(I can't comment on ongoing investigations so this should only be taken as a comment about general password security and not about this particular incident) -- Brian Wikimedia Security Team
On Wednesday, May 16, 2018, Leon Ziemba musikanimal@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm no security expert, so bear with me! Just looking for some clarification.
regularly changing your passwords
It was my understanding studies have shown regularly changing passwords
can
be adverse, no? [1][2] Not sure if we have a stance on that, because this is the first time I've heard it come up.
I don't know if this is relevant to this particular incident of account hijacking, but I've also been told it's important to ensure your password is unique to Wikimedia, and to turn on two-factor authentication, if possible and
you
are willing to do so.[3][4]
[1]
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/techftc/2016/03/time-rethink-mandatory...
[2]
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/password-guidance-simplifying-your-approach
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Password_strength_requirements/en#So_that%27...
? [4] https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Security_Basics#Passwords (staff
only)
~Leon
On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 8:10 AM John Bennett jbennett@wikimedia.org
wrote:
*On 8 May 2018, account hijacking activities were discovered on
Wikiviajes
- Spanish Wikivoyage (es.wikivoyage.org http://es.wikivoyage.org). It
was identified by community stewards and communicated to the Trust and
Safety,
Legal, and Security teams who responded to the event. At this time the event is still under investigation and we are unable to share more about what is being done without risking additional hijacking of accounts. However, we feel it is important to share what details we can and inform the community of what happened. Similar to past security incidents, we continue to encourage everyone to take some routine steps to maintain a secure computer and account - including regularly changing your
passwords,
actively running antivirus software on your systems, and keeping your system software up to date. The Wikimedia Foundation's Security team and others are investigating this incident as well as potential improvements
to
prevent future incidents. We are also working with our colleagues in
other
departments to develop plans for how to best share future status updates
on
each of these incidents. However, we are currently focused on resolving
the
issues identified. If you have any questions, please contact the Trust
and
Safety team (ca{{@}}wikimedia.org http://wikimedia.org). John BennettDirector of Security, Wikimedia Foundation* _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
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