- Mar 8

The Great PetSmart Password Heist & How Not to Be Next

Happy Friday my friend,

Did you received a "Surprise! Reset Your Password" email from petsmart.com this week? If you're nodding while petting Fluffy, here's the scoop. PetSmart's been the playground for some digital miscreants pulling off a credential stuffing attack. That's geek speak for "Bad guys using old passwords from data breaches to crash the pet party."

Imagine, one day you're buying squeaky toys, and the next, someone's joyriding through your account, launching spam fireworks, and treating themselves to a shopping spree—on your dime. Worse, they might just flip your account like a rare Pokémon card in the digital underworld.

With over 60 million humans and their furry counterparts shopping, PetSmart didn't just sit and stay. They hit the big red "Reset" button on accounts caught in the cyber-tug-of-war, because figuring out if it was you or Mr. Hacker behind the keyboard was trickier than teaching a cat to fetch.

Not-So-Fun Fact: This isn't a PetSmart-exclusive party. Big names like PayPal, Spotify, and even Chick-fil-A have danced this dangerous tango. DraftKings took a massive hit with 60,000 accounts compromised by a teen - proving that even betting accounts aren't safe from digital pickpockets.

The Takeaway

So, How Do You Avoid Being the Next Cyber Victim?

Easy to say, hard to do: Unique, complicated passwords for every account, fortified with 2-factor authentication. But, let's face it, our brains are better at remembering pet names than jumbling letters and symbols.

Enter stage left: Password Managers. These digital knights keep your passwords safe, unique, and ready to auto-fill when you're about to log in. Here are the top 3 champions of the password realm:

Keeper - keepersecurity.com (Yes, it keeps things.)
Bitwarden - bitwarden.com (As sturdy as a digital fortress.)
LastPass - lastpass.com (Because remembering your last password should be its job.)