Cloud Computing - Using Security Questions

Logging into Facebook yesterday I was prompted to provide the answer to one of several “security questions”. These were factual questions including “Where was your mother born” and “Last 5 digits of driver’s licence”.

Choosing one that nobody else could easily guess, I wondered what it could be used for. It turns out there is only one usage, to unlock an account if you cannot otherwise use the original email address and password. To avoid someone changing the security answer if they managed to hack the account, the answer cannot be changed.

I had hoped the security question would be asked each time [...read more...]