The truth is, we’d all have strong, hard to crack passwords if we had impeccable memories, but we don’t.
So instead of creating a unique password comprised lower case, upper case and special characters as recommended by PCMag, most of us are guilty of taking the easy way out and just using something like this - Saltlife2018.
The problem is, even a low-grade hacker could run a script to crack your not-so-clever password (no offense!). If a hacker gained unauthorized access to our computer, network, smartphone or tablet, it would cause us a world of trouble. Yet most of us think, “if could never happen to me!”
A password is unequivocally one of the most important words you will ever have to choose in your lifetime. It acts as a lock, a layer of protection for anything that is either private, sacred or of importance to you.
Because password hacking is one of the most common ways that hackers break into computers, we can no longer rely on traditional passwords. According to the latest Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, 81% of hacking related breaches involved either stolen or weak passwords.
Here’s how you can re-build your weak passwords:
Long Passwords:
Long, weird strings that neither computers nor people can guess. Add in some capital letters, special characters and numbers. Example: 309edneSdAyWcTaPPl1987
The problem with your long, strong password is that you will never remember it! But that’s where Password Managers come into play (below).
Don’t use a common phrase:
Don’t use famous movie lines or bible verses & don’t get clever with thematic or personally meaningful passwords. Don’t use your kid’s birthday or the phrase printed on your favorite t-shirt or coffee mug.
Test your password:
A good password manager will test your password in real-time.
Don’t reuse your password:
When your password on some web service is hacked (and it will be), you’d better hope you didn’t use that same password for all other services. A password manager will alleviate this issue.
Use a Password Manager:
Until you take this step and use a password manager, no matter how hard you try all of the above practices will go to waste. You will continue to create weak passwords.
Hackers will only continue to get faster & better at what they do. So If you want to protect your identity, data, money and more, stop taking the easy way out and start thinking seriously about re-vamping your approach to passwords.