What Is Houzz Password Breach

• What Is a Password Breach
• How to Prevent a Password Breach
• How to Generate a Secure Password and Update It in Your Passwarden Storage
• Why You Must Use Passwarden to Protect Your Passwords

Note: Houzz is a US-based online community, software for home design, and decorating. It was founded in 2009 in California.

Houzz is mainly used by homeowners, contractors, and dealers, to find inspiration about decorating and remodeling houses.

In late December 2018, Houzz announced through a FAQ on its website that they discovered a data breach within their website. Houzz said that an unauthorized party obtained a file containing some of their user's data. The file contained different types of data. This information varies, like emails, IP addresses, user logs on Facebook, user IDs, and other types of information.

Additionally, the Houzz website didn’t declare whether this data was sold on hackers' forums or distributed online. The Houzz password breach was one of the biggest ones in 2018. In fact, there were signs of the Houzz password breach. 

Many members of the platform were posting on the website about receiving emails asking them to reset their security credentials. These emails were sent to members before the Houzz password breach announcement.

The Houzz password breach had a bad effect on the company. Users lost trust since the website didn’t bother telling them officially about the incident until they read about it from other security websites.

What Is a Password Breach

Password breach, or generally, data breach, is the act of stealing or taking protected, or classified information to an unauthorized individual. Most password breaches fall under one of these categories: physical, electronic, or malware.

Physical breach

This happens mostly when someone steals or gets access to a document, or a device, like a computer, a laptop, a USB, or any other device that contains confidential information.

Electronic breach

An Electronic breach occurs when unauthorized individuals access or deliberate an attack on a network system or servers where data is stored, processed, or transmitted.

Malware breach

This breach happens when someone spread a virus, or malware through a network, to steal data or cause damage. Some famous types of malware include Trojans, ransomware, and spyware.

How to Prevent a Password Breach

Creating a strong security code would be the best practice to make sure that our data is well protected. To create a strong passcode, keep in mind these tips:

Create a long password

The longer your password, the harder it is to guess it by either humans or pieces of software that are used in brute force attacks.

Use different types of characters

Use mixed characters in your passcode, like upper case letters, lower case, symbols, and numbers. The more complex your password is, the hard it is to be cracked.

Don’t use easy to guess words

Some hackers use tools that are known as “dictionary attack software”. These tools mostly use lists of millions of words that were used before in breached passwords. Using natural language in your security code puts your account in danger.

Don’t use easy keyboard pathways

Unfortunately, passcodes like QWERTY, AZERTY, and 1234 are so common among internet users, and it is considered to be a bad practice. Do not create a password based on some path on your keyboard.

How to Generate a Secure Password and Update It in Your Passwarden Storage

1. Sign in to your Passwarden account.

2. Choose the item you want to update.

3. Click Edit in the right corner bottom. Create a password that is 8 to 10 characters long, with lower-case and upper-case characters, numbers, and special symbols.

4. Update your password in the Password field.

5. Click Save.

You can also generate a random new passcode, click Generate Password next to the Password field, and follow the on-screen steps.

Feel free to contact our helpful customer support If you have any questions about our password manager. You can contact us at [email protected]. We are ready to help you anytime you need it!