One would think after the Sony security fiasco a while back, other companies would have taken steps to tighten their security. They probably did, but it seems Valve/Steam nevertheless fell victim to hackers this week:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/11/10/steam ... mpromised/

I guess it's a good reminder how important it is to choose individual passwords for each site/service one visits. And this also demonstrates why I don't use a credit card online (only PayPal with limited funds).

Let me correct that: salted and hashed passwords, encrypted credit card numbers.

At least they have *not* stored the sensitive information in plain. So I would say, yes, they have tightened their security after the Sony fiasco. Or, more likely, they were not so stupid in the first place

Sure, with the hashed password database, dictionary attacks become feasible. But if you have enough entropy in your password, you're probably safe (you do change your passwords regularly, do you? ). And the time it takes to crack the encryption of the credit card numbers (assuming they use state-of-the-art encryption) probably takes longer than the expiration date of a typical credit card, so you're safe here, too...

While there is certainly a little reason to worry, it's not always as bad as it sounds at first sight.

This latest Steam fiasco came right after another hacker attack that exposed 16,000 Finnish identities including social security numbers, full names, street addresses and emails. In olden times you'd have to catch a virus to have any data of yours compromised, but many large portals these days are gold mines of personal information.

The amount of responsibility is nowhere near the cababilities of security of these companies. Am I going to have to kill my credit card every time some sysadmin somewhere goes whoopsie daisies with his passwords? What about the millions of non-tech-savvy computer users who don't watch the news or understand enough about security to protect their own information online?