Hack attack highlights obvious passwords
If you're a user of Yahoo!, Formspring or LinkedIn, chances are that in the past few months, you've been advised to change your password because of a database hack that's compromised the security of your account. Ref. Stuff.co.nz
Hacking and how to protect yourself
The term "hacker" has been around since the 1980s, first gaining prominence in 1984 as the subject of Stephen Levy's book Hackers: Heroes of a Computer Revolution. The video game Hacker was released in 1985, and 10 years later Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller starred in the 1995 film Hackers, about a group of high school virtual vigilantes. Ref. Source 3