It is becoming more and more frequent in the news that large companies and organisations are telling their customers to change their passwords due to their security systems being compromised.
Hackers and cyber-attackers and getting wiser and they are finding it a lot easier to obtain information that can give them access to you social media, your bank accounts and other sensitive and private information.
With passwords it is most definitely better to be safe than sorry – so by making your password strong you are lessening the risk of coming under attack.
So what can you do?
Password decoders find it easier when your password is short in length (anything less than seven characters) and just a combination of letters and numbers. Strong passwords will contain a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols.
With passwords it is definitely better to have the lengthiest password possible with the right balance of letters numbers and symbols.
Changing your passwords frequently will also improve your chances of being safe. Password decoders sit as a bug in your system and can usually take months to decode a password. If these are regularly changed then you lessen the risk of becoming under attack.
What are you not to do?
Your username and password should be entirely different – this is one of the attacker’s first ports of call.
With the ease of modern technology it is very simple to obtain the information of your friends and family – even your colleagues at work and your pets. None of these should be incorporated into your password at all.
The other avoidable password is a sequential password – abc123 for example. Anything is ascending or descending order would take the coders no time at all to solve.
Preferably any word in the dictionary should not be used. ‘Online Dictionary Attacks’ occur using a program that just covers every word in the dictionary – so this should be avoided.
The technology used to obtain passwords is only getting more and more advanced and sophisticated. The best thing to do is to stay ahead of the game by frequently changing your password and making it as secure as you possibly can.
Not ensuring this timely and simple task is done every few months could have catastrophic consequences not only for you personally – but also for your business or organisation.
Head of Marketing
The Internet Marketing Academy
(Image courtesy of Goldy at FreeDigitalPhotos.Net)