all-in-one privacy solution":["Proton Unlimited est une solution tout-en-un respectueuse de la vie privée"],"Black Friday":["Black Friday"],"No ads. Privacy by default.":["Aucune publicité, le respect de la vie privée comme règle absolue"],"People before profits":["Les individus passent avant les profits"],"Security through transparency":["Notre engagement de transparence"],"The best Proton Mail ${ BLACK_FRIDAY } deals":["Les meilleures offres ${ BLACK_FRIDAY } de Proton Mail"],"The world’s only community- supported email service":["La seule messagerie au monde soutenue par la communauté"]},"specialoffer:limited":{"${ hours } hour":["${ hours } heure","${ hours } heures"],"${ hoursLeft }, ${ minutesLeft } and ${ secondsLeft } left":["Temps restant : ${ hoursLeft }, ${ minutesLeft }, ${ secondsLeft }"],"${ minutes } minute":["${ minutes } minute","${ minutes } minutes"],"${ seconds } second":["${ seconds } seconde","${ seconds } secondes"],"Limited time offer":["Offre à durée limitée"]},"specialoffer:listitem":{"Create multiple addresses":["Créez plusieurs adresses"],"Hide-my-email aliases":["Alias « hide-my-email »"],"Quickly unsubscribe from newsletters":["Désabonnez-vous rapidement des newsletters"],"Use your own domain name":["Utilisez votre propre nom de domaine"]},"specialoffer:logos":{"As featured in":["Ils en parlent"]},"specialoffer:metadescription":{"Get an encrypted email that protects your privacy":["Choisissez une messagerie électronique chiffrée qui protège votre vie privée"]},"specialoffer:metatitle":{"Proton Mail Black Friday Sale - Up to 40% off":["Offre Proton Mail Black Friday - Jusqu'à 40 % de réduction"]},"specialoffer:newmetadescription":{"Get up to 40% off Proton Mail subscriptions this Black Friday. Find great deals on our secure end-to-end encrypted email plans.":["Obtenez jusqu'à 40 % de réduction sur les abonnements Proton Mail à l'occasion du Black Friday. Profitez d'offres exceptionnelles sur nos abonnements de messagerie électronique sécurisée et chiffrée de bout en bout."]},"specialoffer:newmetatitle":{"Proton Mail Black Friday sale | Up to 40% off secure email":["Offre Black Friday Proton Mail | Jusqu'à 40 % de réduction"]},"specialoffer:note":{"* Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first year":["* Facturé ${ TOTAL_SUM } pour la première année"],"*Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first 2 years":["*Facturé ${ TOTAL_SUM } pour les 2 premières années"],"30-day money-back guarantee":["Garantie satisfait ou remboursé pendant 30 jours"],"Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first 2 years":["Facturé ${ TOTAL_SUM } pour les 2 premières années"],"Billed at ${ TOTAL_SUM } for the first year":["Facturé ${ TOTAL_SUM } pour la première année"],"You save ${ SAVE_SUM }":["Vous économisez ${ SAVE_SUM }"]},"specialoffer:off":{"${ DISCOUNT } off":["-${ DISCOUNT }"],"${ PERCENT_OFF } off":["-${ PERCENT_OFF }"]},"specialoffer:testimonial":{"I love my ProtonMail":["J'adore mon ProtonMail"],"My favorite email service":["Ma messagerie électronique préférée"],"Thanks Proton for keeping us all safe in the complicated internet universe.":["Merci Proton de nous garder en sécurité dans l'univers complexe d'internet."],"You get what you pay for. In the case of big tech, if you pay nothing, you get used. I quit using Gmail and switched to @ProtonMail":["Vous avez ce pour quoi vous payez. Avec les Big Tech, si vous ne payez rien, vous êtes utilisé. J'ai arrêté d'utiliser Gmail et je suis passée @ProtonMail"]},"specialoffer:time":{"Days":["Jours"],"Hours":["Heures"],"Min":["Min"]},"specialoffer:title":{"And much more":["Avec en plus"],"Make your inbox yours":["Votre boite de réception sur mesure"],"Safe from trackers":["À l'abri des traqueurs"],"Stay organized":["Bien organisé"],"Black Friday email deals":["Offres Black Friday pour la messagerie électronique"],"Don’t just take our word for it":["Ce qu'en disent nos utilisateurs"],"Our story":["Notre histoire"],"Transfer your data from Google in one click":["Transférez vos données depuis Google en un clic"]},"specialoffer:tooltip":{"Access blocked content and browse privately. Includes ${ TOTAL_SERVERS }+ servers in ${ TOTAL_COUNTRIES }+ countries, connect up to 10 devices, access worldwide streaming services, malware and ad-blocker, and more.":["Accédez aux contenus bloqués et naviguez en toute confidentialité. Comprend plus de ${ TOTAL_SERVERS } serveurs répartis dans plus de ${ TOTAL_COUNTRIES } pays, la possibilité de connecter jusqu'à 10 appareils, l'accès aux services de streaming dans le monde entier, un bloqueur de logiciels malveillants et de publicités et d'autres fonctionnalités."],"Easily share your calendar with your family, friends or colleagues, and view external calendars.":["Partagez facilement votre calendrier avec votre famille, vos amis ou collègues et consultez des calendriers externes."],"Includes support for 1 custom email domain, 10 email addresses, 10 hide-my-email aliases, calendar sharing, and more.":["Comprend la prise en charge de 1 domaine de messagerie personnalisé, de 10 adresses e-mail, de 10 alias « hide-my-email », du partage de calendriers et bien d'autres fonctionnalités."],"Includes support for 3 custom email domains, 15 email addresses, unlimited hide-my-email aliases, calendar sharing, and more.":["Comprend la prise en charge de 3 domaines de messagerie personnalisés, de 15 adresses e-mail, d'un nombre illimité d'alias « hide-my-email », du partage de calendriers et bien d'autres fonctionnalités."],"Manage up to 25 calendars, mobile apps, secured with end-to-end encryption, 1-click calendar import from Google, and more.":["Jusqu'à 25 calendriers, des applications mobiles, la sécurité avec le chiffrement de bout en bout, l'importation de calendrier en un clic depuis Google..."]},"Status Banner":{"At the moment we are experiencing issues with the Proton VPN service":["Nous rencontrons actuellement des problèmes avec le service Proton VPN."],"Learn more":["En savoir plus"]},"Status banner":{"Learn more":["En savoir plus"],"Please note that at the moment we are experiencing issues with the ${ issues[0] } service.":["Nous rencontrons actuellement des problèmes avec le service ${ issues[0] }."],"We are experiencing issues with one or more services at the moment.":["Nous rencontrons actuellement des problèmes avec un ou plusieurs services."]},"suggestions":{"Suggestions":["Suggestions"]},"Support":{"Sub category":["Sous-catégorie","Sous-catégories"]},"Support article":{"${ readingTime } min":["${ readingTime } minute","${ readingTime } minutes"],"Category":["Catégorie","Catégories"],"Didn’t find what you were looking for?":["Vous ne trouvez pas ce que vous cherchez ?"],"General contact":["Contact - Général"],"Get help":["Obtenir de l'aide"],"Legal contact":["Contact - Juridique"],"Media contact":["Contact - Média"],"Partnerships contact":["Contact - Partenariats"],"Reading":["Lecture"]},"Support categories":{"Browse Proton product support":["Parcourez le support produit Proton"]},"Support category":{"There is no article in this category yet.":["Il n'y a pas encore d'article dans cette catégorie."]},"Support troubleshooting":{"--- Select ---":["--- Sélectionner ---"],"App version":["Version de l'application"],"Browser":["Navigateur"],"Check if this helps":["Vérifiez si cela vous aide."],"Choose a category for your question":["Choisissez une catégorie pour votre question"],"Choose a product":["Choisir un produit"],"Did this solve your issue ?":["Cela a-t-il résolu votre problème ?"],"Faster assistance is just a few clicks away — please make your selections":["Il suffit de quelques clics pour obtenir une assistance plus rapide, faites votre sélection."],"No, contact support":["Non, contacter le support"],"Proton account":["Compte Proton"],"Proton Bridge":["Proton Bridge"],"Proton Calendar":["Proton Calendar"],"Proton Drive":["Proton Drive"],"Proton for Business":["Proton for Business"],"Proton Mail":["Proton Mail"],"Proton Pass":["Proton Pass"],"Proton VPN":["Proton VPN"],"Thank you for your feedback":["Nous vous remercions pour votre commentaire."],"Troubleshooting":["Dépannage"],"What can we help with ?":["Comment pouvons-nous vous aider ?"],"Yes":["Oui"]},"support_modal_search_query":{"Search query":["Recherche"]},"support_search_button":{"Search":["Rechercher"]},"support_search_i_am_looking_for":{"I'm looking for":["Je recherche des informations sur..."]},"SupportForm":{"For a faster resolution, please report the issue from the Bridge app: Help > Report a problem.":["Pour que le problème soit résolu plus rapidement, vous pouvez le signaler à partir de l'application Bridge : Aide > Signaler un bug."],"Information":["Informations"]},"SupportForm:option":{"Account Security":["Sécurité du compte"],"Contacts":["Contacts"],"Custom email domain":["Domaine de messagerie personnalisé"],"Email delivery and Spam":["Distribution des messages et indésirables/spam"],"Encryption":["Chiffrement"],"Login and password":["Identifiant et mot de passe"],"Merge aliases and accounts":["Fusion des alias et des comptes"],"Migrate to Proton":["Migration vers Proton"],"Notifications":["Notifications"],"Other":["Autre"],"Plans and billing":["Abonnements et facturation"],"Proton for Business":["Proton for Business"],"Sign up":["Inscription"],"Storage":["Espace de stockage"],"Users, addresses, and identities":["Utilisateurs, adresses et identités"]},"SupportForm:optionIntro":{"Select a topic":["Choisissez un sujet"]},"swiss_baseed_feature":{"Swiss based":["Basé en Suisse"]},"Testimonial":{"Awards":["Récompenses"],"Customers":["Clients"],"Featured":["Ils en parlent"],"Go to testimonial source":["Accéder aux commentaires"],"Reviews":["Avis"],"Videos":["Vidéos"]},"Text":{"Find the plan that's right for you":["Trouvez l'abonnement adapté à vos besoins"],"If you need help, check out our ${ supportLink }.":["Si vous avez besoin d'aide, consultez notre ${ supportLink }."],"The page you’re looking for might have been removed, or it could be an\nold link.":["La page recherchée a peut-être été retirée ou le lien utilisé n'est plus valide."]},"Title":{"On this page":["Sur cette page"],"Related articles":["Articles similaires"],"Share ${ thisPage }":["Partagez ${ thisPage }"],"Thank you!":["Merci !"],"this page":["cette page"]},"Tooltip":{"More information":["Plus d'informations"]},"tooltip_calendar":{"Create up to 20 custom & shareable encrypted calendars. 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Are security questions terrible for account security? | Proton
What was your first pet’s name? In what city were you born?
We’ve all had to answer these questions to reset a long-forgotten password, but consider how that works. Much of this information is easy to find for others (or easily forgotten by you), making it a poor defense for your most valuable online accounts, personal data, and sensitive information.
Security questions are meant to help reset passwords, reopen locked accounts, and ultimately protect your digital spaces from attacks or breaches, but such safeguarding is widely considered flawed and unreliable(new window).
A massive Yahoo data breach(new window) highlighted the perils of relying on security questions to protect your accounts. The breach exposed the personal data of half a billion million users, including their names, email addresses, phone numbers, and the security questions and answers they used for account recovery.
This article will explore why security questions are actually terrible for your security and what measures you can take to better protect your most sensitive private data.
What are security questions?
When you’re locked out of an account, it’s common to face security questions to regain access or reset passwords. This gatekeeper layer of security is common and used across many platforms, from email and social media to banking and shopping websites.
Answers to questions like “What is your mother’s maiden name?” are supposed to be information only you know or a select few — in theory, the more obscure the answer, the better the security.
However, experts have begun to question the effectiveness(new window) of this security layer due to the vulnerabilities that come with requiring people to remember information that can be forgotten, changed, or discovered by potential attackers digging around on the Internet.
Why security questions are a terrible idea
There are several reasons why leaning on security questions to protect you is a bad idea. It comes down to a pair of unfortunate realities: Potential attackers are more clever than you might think, and there’s more personal information online than you realize.
Here’s a look at why security questions are the weakest link of security measures:
Discoverability: In an age where people manage multiple social media accounts across several platforms, attackers can often find answers to security questions with a little digging into your public-facing profiles. They can build a profile of you based on your posts, exploiting publicly available information to bypass security measures and gain access to your account.
Forgettability: Favorites and life details change over time, often making it difficult for you to recall information at the moment you need to. This greatly diminishes the reliability of security questions as a security tool.
“40% of English-speaking US users have failed to recall their answers to security questions, according to Google,” reported Time(new window). “When the questions are very difficult, such as asking for a person’s frequent flier number, the recall rate drops to 9%.”
Beware of oversharing on social media
By exploring your social media accounts, hackers can often obtain the information you use to reset passwords, particularly the answers to security questions. Make sure to consider anything you share that could contain the following information:
Family names
Date of birth
Location of birth
What school you attended
Pet names
Any address, current or former
Details of your routine
What’s at stake? Your data and privacy
If the answers to your security questions are ever compromised, it can lead to widespread privacy violations.
Identity theft: With access to something like your bank account, it wouldn’t take much work for an attacker to impersonate you, open new accounts, or commit fraud with your stolen identity(new window).
Compromised accounts: If the answers to your security questions are exposed in a data breach, any account tied to the answers of those questions can be in danger, as it’s common for people to recycle the same ones over multiple accounts.
What are better alternative security measures?
Knowing the dangers that could come with traditional security questions, you might consider using more effective – and reliable – authentication methods.
Two-factor authentication (2FA)(new window), also known as two-step verification, requires two forms of identification when you log into an account. After you input a username and password, 2FA may have you enter a unique code generated by a mobile authenticator app, plug in a security key(new window), or type in a code sent to your phone.
Here’s a look at the best forms of 2FA:
Security key(new window): Security keys, also known as hardware keys, help prove your identity when you’re logging in to an account, app, or device. This allows you to sign in to your account using a physical key, such as a YubiKey(new window), which resembles a thumb drive. If you choose to use a 2FA key with your Proton Account, for example, you must plug in your key every time you sign in.
Time-based one-time passwords: You can use an authenticator app on your smartphone to generate six-digit passwords that regenerate every 30 seconds to keep codes fresh and make unauthorized access to your accounts difficult for potential attackers. Using TOTP can be inconvenient, however, as it involves entering a code in a short period of time.
What about SMS messages?
Text messages are considered the least secure of 2FA options, as they are vulnerable to SIM-swapping attacks(new window). SMS is unencrypted and insecure(new window), making it easier for hackers to intercept 2FA codes. If there are multiple 2FA methods offered, SMS should be avoided.
Best practices for online security
As cybersecurity threats become more sophisticated and common, it’s important to reassess security practices and the role security questions play in our defense against such attacks. Here are two ways you can enhance your online security right now:
Use email aliases: These let you keep your personal email addresses private. You can use a service, such as SimpleLogin by Proton, to generate distinct email addresses for your various online accounts. That way you can easily revoke an alias tied to a specific account should that account become compromised.
Put your privacy first
You can start by prosecuting your trust in security questions and using alternative tools, such as two-factor authentication and secure email services like Proton Mail to strengthen your defenses.
It’s important to use the best tools available to build a future where privacy is the default.
Sécurisez votre messagerie, protégez votre vie privée
Une communication sécurisée et fluide est la base de toute entreprise. Alors que
de plus en plus d’organisations sécurisent leurs données avec Proton, nous avons
considérablement élargi notre écosystème avec de nouveaux produits et services,
de notre
En matière de cybersécurité, un terme qui revient souvent est l’attaque par
force brute. Une attaque par force brute est toute attaque qui ne repose pas sur
la finesse, mais utilise plutôt la puissance de calcul brute pour craquer la
sécurité ou même
Note : les liens dans cet article renvoient à des contenus en anglais.
La section 702 du Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act est devenue tristement
célèbre comme justification juridique permettant à des agences fédérales telles
que la NSA, la CIA
En réponse au nombre croissant de fuites de données, Proton Mail propose une
fonctionnalité aux abonnés payants appelée surveillance du dark web. Notre
système vérifie si vos identifiants ou autres données ont été divulgués sur des
marchés illégaux e
Votre adresse e-mail est votre identité en ligne et vous la partagez chaque fois
que vous créez un nouveau compte pour un service en ligne. Cette solution est
pratique, mais elle expose votre identité au cas où des pirates parviendraient à
accéder au
Notre mission chez Proton est de contribuer à l’avènement d’un internet qui
protège votre vie privée par défaut, sécurise vos données et vous donne la
liberté de choix.
Aujourd’hui, nous franchissons une nouvelle étape dans cette direction avec le
l