Answer (from Newcastle University research): About 6 seconds (yikes!) [This should grab your students attention!]

From Thrillist:

According to new a paper authored by Newcastle University researchers, hackers can mine your financial information using simple guesswork, spread out across multiple websites. When the process, known as a Distributed Guessing Attack, is coupled with a specifically designed toolkit, it isn’t very hard to exploit the security systems of major e-commerce sites…

What’s the over/under on how quickly VISA will fix this gaping security weakness? I say give them a month….but in the meantime your students might be interested in learning about how to protect themselves from identity theft.

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This question is a great opener to this NGPF lesson on Identity Theft

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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