How secure are your password security question answers? The ones like “What is your mother’s maiden name?” and “What elementary school did you attend?” Even if you’re not a high profile figure like Sarah Palin, your accounts can be hacked by people who know or can find out the answers to questions like these. Ms. Palin’s Yahoo! email account uses a scheme that is used by many: if you “forget” your password, you can reset it by correctly answering the security question.
So how can you defend against someone else resetting your password, and thereby gaining access to your account (and blocking your access to it)? There are a number of ways, but the one I find the most elegant works regardless of the question. Answer it truthfully (so it doesn’t add a memory burden to your own overloaded brain!) but either append or preface it with something else that is constant no matter what the question. For example, you might use the string “Four4” as your constant modifier. Then your mother’s maiden name becomes Four4Smith, and your elementary school becomes Four4ElizabethHaddonSchool.
Unless you broadcast your modifier, no one is going to guess your password security question answers.
