Compliance January 28, 2010

Law Firm Probes Potential Motorola Stock Drop Case

A Pennsylvania law firm has announced it is investigating potential claims against Motorola Inc. in regards to company stock in its 401(k) plan and employee stock purchase plan.
Reported by

The Law Offices of Howard G. Smith allege the company misrepresented sales prospects for its RAZR2 phones and that the release of inaccurate information caused a nearly 19% price drop in its shares.

A company news release said it is trying to find out whether Motorola violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by continuing to offer company stock as part of the Motorola 401(k) plan or its employee stock purchase plan of 1999 after it was no longer prudent to do so.

The firm claims that the share price decline took place in January 2008 after Motorola disclosed its problems with its RAZR2 sales and that the decline caused participants to lose money.

Never miss a story — sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters to keep up on the latest retirement plan adviser news.

Diversions January 28, 2010

If You Want to Get Hacked, Try These Passwords

If your password is “123456,” you might as well leave an electronic key under the doormat with a promise to feed hackers cookies and milk once they break into your system, according to a new study.
Reported by
Sequential passwords might be easy to remember, but they are also the most common, and therefore easy targets for hackers. According to a study by Imperva, a Redwood Shores, California, computer security firm, “123456” is the most common password, followed by a more compact “12345” and a more comprehensive “123456789.”

The password database used in the project came from a hacker attack against a San Mateo, California, developer of social media widgets. In December, a major password breach occurred at RockYou, and the hacker posted the full list of 32 million passwords to the Internet (with no other identifiable information).

Imperva listed the 20 most common passwords (see next page). The company said almost half of the passwords it studied were names, slang words, dictionary words, or what it terms “trivial passwords,” such as consecutive digits and adjacent keyboard keys. Two passwords in the top five were the word “password” and the phrase “iloveyou.”

By relying on a short and simple password, Imperva warned, users become susceptible to basic forms of cyber warfare known as “brute force attacks.”

“Everyone needs to understand what the combination of poor passwords means in today’s world of automated cyber attacks: With only minimal effort, a hacker can gain access to one new account every second or 1,000 accounts every 17 minutes,” said Imperva’s CTO Amichai Shulman, in a news release. “The data provides a unique glimpse into the way that users select passwords and an opportunity to evaluate the true strength of passwords as a security mechanism. Never before has there been such a high volume of real-world passwords to examine.” 

To keep hackers at bay, the company recommends passwords that are at least eight characters long and contain four different character types—upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters (such as !, $, etc.).

Shulman warned: “It’s time for everyone to take password security seriously; it’s an important first step in data security.”

Top 20 Most Common Passwords

  1. 123456
  2. 12345
  3. 123456789
  4. Password
  5.  iloveyou
  6. princess
  7. rockyou
  8. 1234567
  9. 12345678
  10. abc123
  11. Nicole
  12. Daniel
  13. babygirl
  14. monkey
  15. Jessica
  16. Lovely
  17. michael
  18. Ashley
  19. 654321
  20. Qwerty


Source: Imperva study of RockYou security breach

Want the latest retirement plan adviser news and insights? Sign up for PLANADVISER newsletters.

«