In this post, we will see why strong passwords are so important and how to create a good password in order to protect yourself from hackers. In today’s world, almost everyone uses internet banking, online shopping, even your facebook account is personal than ever before, so its common for hackers to steal information by guessing your password. And choosing poor passwords like your name, 12345, ‘password’ itself will only make their work easier.
If your password falls into wrong hands, someone can easily impersonate you while online, sign your name to online service agreements or contacts, engage in transactions, or change your account information.so what should we do ,here are some do’s and don’t to keep in mind while creating a password.
Good password ideas
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- A good password has a combination of upper and lower case letters along with numbers and special symbols(! @ $ % ^ &).
- Use at least 10 characters, longer the password, more secure it is.
- Always select good security questions. If you have a simple questions like your DOB , family member’s name or your address, anyone can find it from your social profile and can access your account.
DON’TS:-
- Never use your name ( no not even your nickname..!! ) or any family members’ or friends’ name.
- Avoid writing it down anywhere.
- Do not use the same password for everything. If someone knows your one password, he or she can access all your Accounts
- Never share your password with anyone, not even to your best friend or family members.
- Never leave your account logged in, not even for a minute. By the time you were out, people may change your security questions or recovery e-mail to later have access to your account.
- Don’t stick with the same password. It is recommended to change your password in every 3-6 months.
- Don’t select dictionary words. Now-a-days hackers use dictionary attack in which the software tests thousands of dictionary words in just 2-3 sec.
Tips to make a good password:
- Select a Passphrase instead of a password. This can be anything, a line from your favorite song, a quotation or a catchy slogan, anything which you use more often. Eg: Watch your step- it could be your last.
- Take initial alphabet of every word in the phrase like in above eg: wys-icbyl. See now it looks pretty strong.
- Now to make it more secure, use a combination of upper and lower case letters. Eg: WyS-iCbYl.
- Replace some alphabetic characters with non-alphabetic characters. Eg : s look similar to 5 and i to !, this would make it look like Wy5-!CbYl.
- You can further add any website’s name or computer name or any name for which it is meant. Eg : if its for Facebook- {f@(eb00k}
- So finally it becomes – Wy5-!CbYlf@(eb00k
How to remember such type of passwords?
What if we have many passwords like that for different types of websites that we access…?? For that we have many PASSWORD MANAGER SOFTWARE to store different passwords in one location. Personally I prefer keepass. This is an excellent open source freeware, that stores the passwords in high encrypted format.
How to make sure that you have selected a good password ?
There are many online services that check whether your selected password is secure or not. One such service is the The Password Meter. Here they will make sure that your password is safe to use.
