Is mother's maiden name that good for security?

[Nikia]

I was just thinking about this. It is common for financial institutes to use this as a security word, which no one else would know. Really though, many people could know that. In small towns, many people know many people, including several generations. Even in bigger areas, friends and former friends often know their respective mother's maiden names. Older female friends know their friends'chilren's mother's maiden names.
A good source for finding mother's maiden names of strangers is the obituaries, which usually lists people's parents, children, and sometimes grandchildren.
I don't know what a better code word would be, but this could really be public knowledge.

[eyesroll]

1. No. It's terrible.

Especially now that many women keep their names after getting married, or use their maiden names professionally. And, for that matter, there are plenty of single mothers whose kids use their name -- my cousin, for instance, is Hername Lastname; my aunt (her mother) is Auntname Lastname; and guess what? Lastname is my aunt's maiden name, because she is not married.

Other popular codes? Last 4 digits of the SSN. Eye color. Pet's name. All terrible. There's really no good security codes that are also easy to remember, though, short of phone-capable biometrics. And we're not there yet.

[carpetbagger]

2. It's a little better than "what's your first name"

But not by much.

If you ever find yourself breaking into a house with an alarm, use 1-2-3-4. Your chances of success are 1 in 5. Then use the last four digits of the persons phone number if you have it, otherwise start going through combinations of 2356.

[Bill McBlueState]

7. 2356

Any idea why? The code for my parents' garage door is a combination of those numbers.

[osaMABUSh]

3. Your right, it is totally unsecure

hackers or, heck, anybody probably break into accts all the time with Mother's maiden name. Of course, it's not secure.

We need some non-password method of security. Fingerprint or voice scans at the PC or device.

[Deja Q]

4. How about outsourcing the credit bureaus to India?

And if you think that report on 60 Minutes is convincing, think again... (of course, the 60 minutes report was 3 months ago...)

The lack of integrity of the corporation will get us all, one way or another.

[osaMABUSh]

5. Remember Cantor Fitzgerald in the WTC?

Cantor Fitzgerald lost all their employees that knew the passwords to the disaster recovery software systems BUT the surviving employees GUESSED all those passwords by sitting around and thinking about what they knew of those that perished.

A gruesome example of how passwords can be unsecure. But in this case it was for the good.

[DBoon]

6. Sucks for security

All the other reasons cited, plus in Latin American cultures, isn't your mother's maiden name part of your full name (first+middle+mother's surname+father's surname)?