******** IMPORTANT ** Effective 4/16/2013 ********
Regarding your email account with SiteVision, Inc.
We, at SiteVision, need to let our loyal customers know that we are changing email account requirements, limits and password requirements in order to comply with Anti-Spam regulations and standards.
We host over 2000 email accounts for our customers and are constantly battling SPAM and hacked email accounts that are exploited to distribute SPAM due to poor and weak account passwords. This causes havoc for ALL of our customers since once an email account is hacked and exploited to distribute spam, our email servers get placed on email "black lists" that then interfere with all of our customers in the sending and receiving of authorized and valid email communications.
We have tried to educate our users and deal with troublesome accounts on a case by case basis in the past, but it has become to onerous for our staff to keep up with and the problems continue. Simply put, some of our email customers are using very insecure passwords such as "password" or "1234". We have identified over 200 accounts with passwords such as these or similar. This type of password can be hacked almost instantaneously by a standard desktop computer. Also, upon initial review, we have determined the majority of email account passwords of our customers could be hacked in just a few days utilizing a standard desktop computer.
Consider the following passwords, and ask yourself which one is safer:
T@k?n123 -or- 0nceUponATime.
Well interestingly enough, the first password will take a standard desktop PC a couple of weeks to crack, while the second password would take the same computer 100's of millions of years - with current technology and software.
Therefore, beginning April 16th 2013, we are instituting strong password enforcement on all new and existing email accounts hosted by SiteVision. Passwords must be at least 12 characters long and contain a capital letter, lower case letter, number, and special character. Once this has been instituted and accounts have been updated your email account will be essentially un-crackable as will all the email accounts that we host for our valued customers. Black-lists will be a thing of the past and you can rest easy in knowing your email account is safe from nefarious activity by hackers, spammers or anyone interested in invading your privacy.
Consider using a pass-phrase vs. a password. In the example above the phrase is easy to remember and naturally includes all of the required variations. Additionally, you can use them to help remind you of habits you want to keep or get rid off.
For example, the pass-phrase "Just 1 soda per day." would take a sextillion years to crack.
So please understand the absolute need for us to institute this new requirement and know that you are helping to make your email communications secure and private and others' email experience less problematic and frustrating.
Thank you,
Patrick Maddox
President
SiteVision, Inc.Article ID: 43, Created On: 4/16/2013, Modified: 8/1/2014