News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by bbotond on Sunday June 26, 2016 @10:28AM (#11980922)
Man I hate those security questions with a passion. They are super weakly protected backdoors into your account.

Here's how I deal with sites that require them:

site: "What is your first teacher's name?"

me: "'Fx|<n8K@W8#[_,[ (1p)jqPC"

The answer is a password equivalent, so I just treat it like a password.

Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by Tepix on Sunday June 26, 2016 @10:52AM (#11981032)
Doesn't work with United MileagePlus accounts, they only allow multiple choice answers!
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by dtemp on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:56PM (#11981537)
Yep. I believe when I created my account, I picked ones that were definitely not real answers, ie. "What's your favorite sport?" answer "lawn darts".
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by bbotond on Sunday June 26, 2016 @01:19PM (#11981620)
Even if you picked a fake answer, that doesn't stop someone from brute-forcing it, which is made very easy by the limited range of possible options.
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by majewsky on Monday June 27, 2016 @03:33AM (#11984666)
Any social engineers reading this? :)
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by sshanky on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:56PM (#11981539)
Just give the wrong answer and keep track in your password tracker. At least social engineers can't figure that out.
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by simbalion on Sunday June 26, 2016 @03:07PM (#11982142)
Contact their tech group and then contact their CEO and show them this article. :)
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by bbotond on Sunday June 26, 2016 @12:32PM (#11981454)
That's just appalling.
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by Vexs on Monday June 27, 2016 @10:28AM (#11986333)
Someone pointed out that if you talk to a CS rep and try to say that off, they'd just hear gibberish- meaning if someone tried to get at your stuff, they would just have to spout off gibberish and the CS rep would probably accept it.
Re:The “Cobra Effect” that is disabling paste on password fi... by jandrese on Monday June 27, 2016 @04:25PM (#11989191)
If you can do this, it seems weird you would ever need to contact support for help. If you can keep the security answers safe why can't you keep the original password safe in the same place?

Or is this for when the account is locked for some random reason?