Strong security questions,
for two different jobs
For one of the jobs, security questions are used to try and recover an account after a password has been forgotten. This is a familiar scenario. For the second job, security questions are used to try and verify the identity of a caller. This is especially important in the AI voice clone era.
As we work in more places, use more tools and communicate in more ways, there is a growing list of scenarios where AI voice clones and deepfake video can be difficult to separate from real people. Pausing for a moment to verify the person making the family or company communication is genuine, by using a private word or safe word already chosen for that purpose, is a simple step.
When you’ve forgotten your password or locked yourself out of an online service, you can recover your account by answering security questions.
They only help to recover an online account after a password failure or lockout, as long as the answer to the security question is something that a complete stranger would not be able to find, guess, or pull out of your public life. This guide will teach you how to create your own questions and write safe answers in order to recover access to your online accounts and services.
Deepfakes have become so realistic that even people paying close attention are tricked by voice clones and video deepfakes.
A safe word is a word that a family member or employee would recognize as being from a real person and that nobody else should be able to reproduce, a word you would agree on beforehand. If the person does not know the safe word, you should not share private information or take the requested action until you verify them another way.
