What is your pet's name?  Where were you born?  What is your favorite book?

These are some of the many questions that can be asked in order to recover lost account information for things like Yahoo! Mail and other popular online services.  These questions (sometimes called Account Security Questions) are used because, usually, the account holder is the only one who can answer the questions correctly.

But with today's social networking sites, like Facebook and Myspace, the answers to these questions can be found very easily and without any advanced tricks or tatics.

Let's look at resetting a Yahoo! Mail account.

The first thing you need is the e-mail address.  If you're friend has it on their Facebook, this is simple to get.
The next question asks for their Birthday, Country, and zip-code.  Again, this is all found on a Facebook page.

Now the third question is the Account Security Question.  This all depends on what they selected when signing up for the account.  One of the popular ones is "favorite pass time."  Look under their Activities or Hobbys section on their Facebook.

See how easy it is?  With no programming, hacking, or true computer skills you reset the password and have gained access to your friends e-mail account.  But it's not just that account; every account they have online that is linked to that e-mail address is now potentially compromised (banking, IM, blog, Myspace, Facebook, Paypal, eBay, forums, etc.)  And it's not just friends who are at risk.  Anyone with their profile open to the public (as long as it contains enough personal information) is at risk.

This is the same way hackers gained access to Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account.  Using public information, as well as information from her speeches, the password to her account was reset and taken.

If you have a lot of personal information on your Myspace, Facebook, or other web site, you may want to rethink what's on your profile.  Also be aware of the privacy settings and who you're allowing into your pages.  An innocent blerb of your favorite book can end up opening your e-mail account to hackers.