this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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The Internet Archive is under attack, with a popup claiming a ‘catastrophic’ breach (www.theverge.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I recently went through most of my accounts and randomized the username, with the thought here being to limit the likelihood of one site being compromised leading to accounts at other sites being compromised. I don't have to remember them due to using a password manager, so it's really no skin off my nose.

I'll use this as a reminder to everyone to improve your security. Some ideas:

  • use a password manager and use random usernames and passwords
  • have multiple email accounts, and don't use your "main" email w/ random signups - I use a simple mnemonic, like "-@domain.com"; so "[email protected]" or "[email protected]" so it's easy for me to remember, but unlikely for a lazy hacker to pwn other accounts (a lot of these are automated); my real email is "[email protected]"
  • use 2FA if offered, even if it's stupid SMS or email based; having any extra step can deter an attacker

Sucks that people are targeting IA, I hope there isn't any lasting damage and that this is a simple defacement/DOS.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (4 children)

For e-mails, you can just get firefox relay with your own subdomain and generate infinite e-mail masks for 1$ a month. I usually take "[email protected]" for example. It's pretty great because you just make the masks on the fly.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I've been doing this for several years now (not specifically that service, since I have my own domains). It's really nice knowing exactly who sold your email to the spam bots, because it's right in the address. Super easy to block once that happens.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

addy.io is another service which I'm using with my own domain. I know there exists a third, but I can't remember the name.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yup.

If you use the same email everywhere, they can try brute-forcing the password by using the email instead of your username. Give them less to go on. $1/month is absolutely worth it to prevent an important account from getting hacked.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What about plus addressing which is supported by most major mail services for free? You can just use [email protected] for example.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

For users of Gmail, I can confirm this works and you can even set it up so that address+nameofshop goes to a folder called "nameofshop."

You can also apparently add a dot anywhere before @gmail.com and still receive the email. I haven't tried this one, but the last time I mentioned this someone said it was part of the email standard, so presumably it works.

I don't know of tricks specifically of this vein for proton mail, but I do know you can setup a catch-all address so, for example, something addressed to [email protected] goes instead to [email protected].

I've not tried SimpleLogin, but apparently it offers similar functionality.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

can confirm, [email protected] works just the same as [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I didn't know that actually. They can still deduce your actual email address from that, but for the identification of the culprit that would work as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The email mask is free without a subdomain. I use it for the odd random signups where the only thing I'm really interested in is not having another nobhead add me to their spam lists.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

That's how I used it initially as well, but chose to get a subdomain to identify shops and services that had data breaches/leaks, pass on the email to other shops and services, etc.

And then I can just block that mask.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I recently went through most of my accounts and randomized the username, with the thought here being to limit the likelihood of one site being compromised leading to accounts at other sites being compromised. I don’t have to remember them due to using a password manager, so it’s really no skin off my nose.

I’ll use this as a reminder to everyone to improve your security. Some ideas:

use a password manager and use random usernames and passwords
have multiple email accounts, and don’t use your “main” email w/ random signups - I use a simple mnemonic, like “<user>-<purpose>@domain.com”; so “[email protected]” or “[email protected]” so it’s easy for me to remember, but unlikely for a lazy hacker to pwn other accounts (a lot of these are automated); my real email is “[email protected]”
use 2FA if offered, even if it’s stupid SMS or email based; having any extra step can deter an attacker

Sucks that people are targeting IA, I hope there isn’t any lasting damage and that this is a simple defacement/DOS.

thanks for the advices ! Would you recommend a particular password manager?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I like Bitwarden, largely because it's open source and audited by a reputable third party.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

ok, thanks !

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Point 2... if you pay for a email aliasing service, you will be locked in. What I suggest is using plus addressing. e.g.

[email protected]

As long as you keep using randomized ones, this'll be as good as an alias against automated and manual login attempts. It just does not hide your base email, which would be

[email protected]

Many email services offer some free aliases. For example, I use one alias, along with my main email that is only used for important services. Other than that, I have an alias that is used for online accounts. This way, your main inbox is free of spammers. And even if your main address were to be the target of a spammer, the automatic spamming software most likely will not chop off the plus part, so you can easily block that email with the specific plus identifier. Not as good as external email aliasing services, but at least you won't be locked into the email aliasing service. Bitwarden has a generator for such things, really nice tbh.