Importance of Secure Passwords

Protection

It is extremely important to choose passwords that protect your personal information. There are many types of dangerous identities that are working every day to steal your personal information such as hackers and malicious software. There are many ways for hackers to steal your information. They have resources to buy your passwords of the dark web, manual guessing, and social engineering are some of the most common methods of stealing personal passwords and information. It is crucial to protect these passwords the best you can to protect personal information and even your business information.

Devices

While people often consider hackers and malicious software on our desktop computers or laptops, the dangers on devices go much farther. A misconception is that we often think that this is where the threat stops. We often don’t consider our personal hand-held devices as potentially being in danger. It is important to realize that these devices such as: cell phones, tablets, and music players are all vulnerable to being invaded by hackers. It is important to protect all devices and create strong passwords.

Creating a Good Password

You now know how important it is to protect this information. The next step is how. There are many ways to protect your password from becoming leaked. The best way to protect your personal information is to create strong passwords. Here is a list of the top 12 ways to create a strong and beneficial password:

1. Create a unique password.
2. Make password long. Your password should be a combination of upper and lower case letters and symbols of at least 8 characters long.
3. Do not include personal information in your password.
4. Do not use keys consecutive to one another. (Ex. yuiop)
5. Be aware of your surroundings. Be sure that no one is watching you create or type in your password.
6. Always be sure to log off/sign out of websites.
7. Avoid using passwords on computers you do not control. There is potential malicious software programmed on the computer to steal your information.
8. Avoid entering passwords when on unsecured WIFI connections. Hackers have easy ways to hack into public WIFI.
9. Never share your passwords with people.
10. Change your passwords regularly. Avoid repeating same passwords.
11. Do NOT write down your passwords. Someone will find it.
12. Always select ‘never’ when your computer asks if you wish to save your password information.