With all the stories in the past year about major data breaches that included, in some cases, stolen or cracked passwords, a good way to kick off the new year is to change old passwords and then resolve to be more vigilant about security in the coming year – and beyond.
When you change those passwords, it starts with “strong” passwords that combine upper and lower case letters, numbers and special symbols. In general, the longer the stronger.
We frequently see issues with weak and insecure passwords. “Insecure” meaning “well known to everyone”. A password that isn’t private is worse than useless since it gave a false sense of security to the user(s).
As bad is the “weak” password. These are usually single words or strings of numbers, easily guessed because it related to the user who selected it. If someone could sit down in your workspace and guess your password by looking at your pictures, nick-nacks, books, wallpaper, etc, you have a weak password. So, a few tips…
Real words by themselves are easy to guess and easy to crack, so don’t use them.
Similarly, using names, dates, personal interests or other easily learned or guessed information is a poor idea.
For most people, it’s not practical to have a different password for everything you access, but a different password for each type of access should be considered (one for banking, one for shopping sites, one for company logins, etc).
Strong passwords don’t have to be hard to remember. “123456” is a bad password, but “1@3$5^” could be a good one. It seems like it would be tough to remember, but look at your keyboard and try it… it’s easy to key and would be hard to guess.
If you have too many passwords to remember, there are password keepers that will store secure password lists, or you can password protect a document or spreadsheet that contains them. And if you have questions or need help, we can help.
