Music Lovers Attacked! Earworms Planted!

Some music lovers may be experiencing some unpleasant earworms when firing up their Spotify accounts. Although the Swedish music service has reported that no breach has occurred of its network, some customers are claiming some strange behavior is going on with their accounts. Some of the oddities are modified playlists, use of accounts in other locations, changed email addresses, and recently played songs that the users never listened to.

Information such as user names, email addresses, dates of subscriptions, passwords, account types, and the countries where the accounts were created were posted on the site Pastebin. This is a site used for storing and sharing data. While it typically is used for legitimate purposes, it has recently been used for sharing stolen data as well.

Being blamed for this so far is password reuse; the same issue that has been blamed for other high profile incidents such as the “Naked Celebrity” one for last year, the recent Nieman Marcus breach, and the TaxAct incident of earlier this year.

How can you avoid this? To put it simply, don’t reuse your online login credentials for multiple accounts. Make sure each one has a unique password. While it may seem overwhelming to have so many different passwords, there are some ways it can be made a bit easier.

• Create your passwords using the same core password and then tack on a combination of the characters from each website. For example, use a core password of “Xz*30#D” and then add the first two characters of the website on one end. This will essentially ensure each password is different.

• You can also use the “dice” method to create strong passwords. This involves using a combination of random words to create your passphrases; as if you are just throwing dice with random words on them. You can do this by opening up a dictionary, or any document really, and pointing to a word randomly. Then do it again to get something such as “curTainFreewayriveR.” Then you can add a special character and a number and have a strong credential.

• It normally isn’t good advice to write down passwords, but considering the sheer number of them we all have to use these days, if you choose to do this, make sure that list is kept separately from your computer. If malware ends up on your machine, it may grab that document and essentially steal the keys to your online kingdom. If you can use clues to trigger your memory of the password rather than writing down the entire word or phrase, it’s much better. The location to store your password list should not be in plain sight or somewhere easy to find, such as under your keyboard. If you keep it in electronic format, store it on a separate USB stick or hard drive rather than on your mobile devices or computers that connect to the Internet.

No matter how you create or remember your passwords, make sure they are all are at least eight characters, include upper and lower case letters, at least one number, and at least one special character.

This is not the first time Spotify has been in the news for security concerns. There were others in 2009, 2014, and even earlier in 2016. For all the music lovers out there, take steps to keep your accounts safe so you can keep on singing and dancing.