WIRED tackled the big questions in security this week, starting with maybe the biggest: Why do so many people use "dragon" as their password[1]? The answer actually says a lot about the psychology of passwords, and how those popular password lists are made in the first place. And there's a whole lot more.
Another surprising discovery? Why it makes at least some sense that Atlanta paid $2.6 million to recover[2] from a ransomware attack that had demanded only $52,000. A less surprising one? That MSNBC host Joy Reid is far from the first person to blame hackers for things going awry online.[3]. And in the least surprising development of the week, the House Intelligence Committee's report on Russian interference[4] in the 2016 election was more than a little half-baked.
As for hacks, well, we've got those too. Security researchers figured out how to turn an Amazon Echo into an eavesdropping device[5], although Amazon has since fixed flaws in the system that allowed for it. Similarly, hotel rooms around the world are vulnerable to a hack that lets an intruder mimic a hotel's master key[6] and open any door. And technologist Roy Ozzie has a plan to end the encryption debate[7], or at least shift the focus from technology to policy.
Plus there's more! As always, we’ve rounded up all the news we didn’t break or cover in depth this week. Click on the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.
The World's Largest DDoS For Hire Site Goes Down[8]
Europol announced this week that it had shut down webstresser.org, a service that launched distributed denial of service attacks—which throws junk traffic at a