In case you missed it the first time around, research has already proved that your password probably sucks. That research, by Microsoft MVP Troy Hunt, was based on a sampling of roughly 37,000 leaked Sony Pictures passwords leaked by LulzSec earlier this year. 37,000 password is chump change to Splashdata, the makers of a password management app, who sifted through millions of passwords that were dumped online during the hacktastic year that was 2011 and came up a list of the 25 passwords used most often by hacking victims. Is yours on the list?

Man, Sony just can’t catch a break. Remember that whole “Hackers shut down the PlayStation Network for an extraordinarily long time” thing from a few months ago? Sure you do. Well, the bad news for PlayStation fans continues. Sony’s temporarily suspended 93,000 Sony Entertainment Network, PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment accounts after hackers managed to gain access to the log in information for the accounts.

After a hot and heavy summer – whew! – things are starting to cool down a bit on the nefarious hacker front. But even though LulzSec and Anonymous have chilled out in the wake of numerous arrests, the lesson remains: almost no website is safe against a skilled and dedicated hacker. Wait! Take off that tinfoil hat! While small business owners will still need to deal with the embarrassment of a successful hack attack, they won’t need to sweat the monetary fallout if they jump on the new SMB data breach insurance being offered by Hartford insurance.

Even as Microsoft’s busy pulling the curtain back on its upcoming Windows 8 operating system, somebody’s trying to shove Linux, the open-source OS alternative, into a bag and toss it into a river. A couple of weeks ago, we reported that kernel.org, a Linux source code repository, fell victim to a hack attack that compromised users of the site (but not the Linux source code itself). Now, other Linux websites find themselves under assault, too.