Passwords are an important part of our world, both at work and at home. They protect nearly all of your devices and online accounts including social media, banking, email, and more. Here are some tips for creating and maintaining strong passwords to protect yourself online.
First, it is important to not use the same password for all accounts. That is because if your password is compromised on one account and your password is the same for everything, all of your accounts could be impacted. It is also encouraged to regularly change your passwords.
When creating passwords, keep some of these tips in mind:
- Use eight characters or more.
- Use long phrases that you can remember like a book or movie title with added punctuation and numbers
- Do not use personal information that is easy to guess or available on social media like a pet’s name or your birthday.
- Try replacing letters with characters/ numbers like “@” can replace “A”, “!” can replace “I” and “3” can replace “E”.
- Misspell words in your password in an obvious way. For example, freedom could be spelled “phreedom” or magic could be spelled “majic”.
- Make sure that you use different passwords for different accounts so that if one is guessed not all of your accounts can be accessed.
- Use stronger authentication when it is available. This creates an extra step so that your accounts are even safer than with just a password.
- Do not share your passwords.
If you have any questions about network security or would like to learn more, contact JMK today!