Hilton Hacked, But How

Om Malik, Wednesday, February 23, 2005 at 9:03 AM PT Comments (3)

Figuring out people’s passwords for hackers is not very difficult, especially is someone is as infamous as Paris Hilton. There are many theories doing the rounds on the Internet about how her phone got hacked. Here is how it might have happened:

Like many online service providers, T-Mobile.com requires users to answer a “secret question” if they forget their passwords. For Hilton’s account, the secret question was “What is your favorite pet’s name?” By correctly providing the answer, any internet user could change Hilton’s password and freely access her account.

Since she brings her pet dog, Tinker Bell everywhere, it wasn’t that hard to guess. There is no excuse for stupidity, so it serves her right that she is losing friends faster than clothes on her yummy video.

3 comments so far

December 31st, 1969
5:59 PM PT
Anand Jain said:

People have to realize that their passwords and the password questions have to be equally cryptic. Those sites suck which dont let you make up your own password question.
I’ve written about password hints/questions on my security blog: http://www.ypjain.com/simplesecurity/2004/12/password-hints.html

December 31st, 1969
5:59 PM PT

So was it her Sidekicked that was “hacked” or the T-Mobile online account access?

December 31st, 1969
5:59 PM PT
Om Malik said:

Hmm. Character assassination and utter speculation all in one post. What is this? The National Enquirer

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