Ars Technica published this story about the hacking of a firm whose business is to secure networks and protect others against the kind of hacking it suffered. It’s an interesting and instructive tale about how hackers operate and why it’s important to use secure, unique passwords for the different sites and services in your life.

Spoiler: It’s not so hard to “hack” when basic precautions are not taken.

Once this article rightly scares you, think about your passwords and whether you use the same ones everywhere. If you do, it’s time to change them. To help keep track, I recommend PasswordWallet, a Mac or Windows app with a related app for the iOS devices. PasswordWallet will let you track your various passwords and even offers tools to take you to sites and enter the passwords for you. It has facilities to synchronize the passwords among your various devices and keeps all of your information in an encrypted file protected by a single password.