Beware your "secret question."

Be careful when you choose your challenge questions and answers.

I recently had to log into a site I hadn't been in for about a year. When presented with the password recovery challenge questions, one of them was "Childhood Nickname." Now, since this was not a personal site, I knew it would not be my *REAL* childhood nickname, but rather one I made up that I *thought* would be easy to remember. I was wrong.

As it turns out, the answer was "The Gingerbread Man." Under what possible circumstance would I ever have come up with THAT as a nickname? And a better question still: How on earth was I ever going to REMEMBER that one?  I have no idea!

Just remember the next time you have to create answers to password recovery questions: choose wisely.

Someone once told me (and I have since shared this with other folks) that the best thing to do is ALWAYS answer with your favorite color - regardless of the question.  Former boss? Red. Favorite food? Red. First car? Red.  See? You'd never forget, right? Right?  Maybe not...