11-Feb-22

This post is on the subject of security. It is very important that each user chooses a strong password for their account. Brute-force attacks (where a potential intruder will try random passwords to access a user’s account) are extremely common. These attacks usually begin with using a list of common passwords and move onto systematically trying various key-combinations. This means that short or easy-to-guess passwords will not hold up for very long in the face of a persistent attack.

Obviously we have measures in place to prevent these types of attacks (such as limiting the number of incorrect login attempts and restricting server access to a specific IP address), but password selection by each user plays a big part in overall site security.

As the Private Money Club is all about connecting people, contact information is easily accessible to anyone who is logged in. This means that using a weak password not only puts your information at risk, it puts the information of every other user at risk as well.

The best defense to brute force attacks is simple: using a long password with various types of characters. Attacks use a computer program to try combinations of passwords and the longer the password, and the more varied the types of characters used (lower-case, upper-case, numbers, symbols) the longer it would take to crack.

Also, using the same password on multiple sites is ill-advised. Should a breach occur on one site, your password is now exposed and any other site where you used the same email and password is open to illegal access. If you want to check if your email address was ever found on a compromised site you can use this tool.

So please be mindful of the passwords you use, on this site and any others.

-PMC Site Admin