Is your password secure enough?

There’s a good reason Netflix warns users to change their passwords. When successful giants like LinkedIn, Google, eHarmony, Yahoo, and many more have struggled with security breaches and cracked passwords, one should seriously consider creating a stronger password. In this new era of cybercrime, no one is safe from potential attacks by hackers and keyloggers. Typing “wrong” or “I don’t know” as passwords can be fun for some, but they are extremely insecure. And security is by no means a laughing matter. If you think those passwords are bad, check out this list of the 10 worst and most insecure passwords on the Internet*:

1. 123456 (#1 for the third consecutive year)

2. password (#2 for the third year in a row)

3. 1 2 3 4 5

4. 12345678

5. football

6. QWERTY

7. 1234567890

8. 1234567

9. princess

10. 1 2 3 4

Of course, there are methods to create a stronger password, but still, when it comes to mass digital breaches of late, we can do more than just avoid “popular” clichés like “qwerty123” or “loveme123456.” Six-letter passwords also don’t hold up to high-quality cracking software. Here are some things to consider when making your password more secure:

length and complexity

In this fast-paced digital age, today’s computers are extremely fast and efficient, compared to the machines of a decade ago. This means that today it is much easier for a cybercriminal or hacker to make a quick job of an unsuspecting victim’s personal or professional information. Millions of password leaks are constantly being reported, yet many simply refuse to understand why password length and complexity matter so much.

In some circles, a minimum of eight characters in a password is considered sufficient. But we recommend that you consider 16-20 characters or more. One should create passwords from easy to remember sentences, random phrases or even song lyrics as it should be more than enough for further security of your networks and devices.

Thinking outside the box is key. Even if popular articles suggest unique password ideas, it’s not a good idea to take them for granted. Invent your own pattern that only you will remember. Hackers tend to keep up to date on the latest trends. They are informed about popular patterns and will be more than happy to try these password hints.

password patterns

There are many Star Wars fans around the world with a solid understanding of the franchise and the universe. Hackers know it. They also know that “maytheforcebewithyou,” for example, is a common guess when trying to hack someone’s password.

Master Yoda would recommend using the standard combination of uppercase characters, symbols, and numbers. However, this practice is complex and you should not use the same difficult password for all of your accounts. If crooks get a hold of a password, you can bet they’ll use it on your other accounts.

Additionally, a 2013 research study for the Federal Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, conducted by Korelogic, reports that there is a common pattern to the passwords of all caps, symbols, and numbers that people use. The pattern is like this: the first character is uppercase, followed by 5 or 6 lowercase, then 3 numbers or the year of birth. Common mistakes are capitalizing the first letter, ending the password with an exclamation point, and not spacing numbers between characters.

Our advice would be to use a multi-word phrase with approximately 16 characters or more, made up of random words. For example, “correcthorsebatterystaple”, which is made up of four common English words, but is considered so random that it would take 550 years with 1000 attempts per second for any hacking script to attempt to crack it.**

Are you typing your passwords?

Notepads won’t cut it either. Unique passwords are difficult, so people often write them down. Many people make the mistake of leaving notes with credit card passwords in their wallet or in a drawer. While cyber thieves don’t have the technology to access your scraps of paper, your family members, roommates, colleagues, handymen, and others do. And this probably goes against the security best practices of most companies.

This is where password management programs can help. The easy-to-use software uses a master password method to keep your valuable passwords down to one phrase. One can build unique and extremely strong passwords and only need to remember one password to recover them. Programs like 1Password, Keepass, Dashlane, LastPass, Sticky Password, and others can save valuable information and ultimately time and money.

changing your password

It should be noted that this is not exactly the most suitable method for dealing with cyber breaches. Changing it every 2-3 months is not always the best idea because you will have to remember each and every password. You should only change your password if there has been a massive security breach on the website or service, so you should keep up to date on the latest news.

Security issues are just as important. The strongest password can and will collapse due to a weak security response. The questions are usually her mother’s maiden name, the city she was born in, and a catastrophe could occur if hackers have this information. All of which can be easily obtained via Facebook or other leftover information on social networks, depending on your privacy settings.

Considering things

In short, there is no foolproof method for creating an absolutely secure password. We can only make the effort to strengthen these passwords and protect our networks and vital information.

– Always create unique passwords with memorable combinations of words, symbols, and numbers that don’t look like common patterns like “Doolittle1982!” or “7LittlePiglets#”.

• Always use long 16-character passwords that are complex enough but easy to remember.

• Never write your name, address or year in your password

• Consider using a password manager

• Unless you live alone, don’t write passwords on sticky notes

• Avoid using combinations of 12345 number strings

• Avoid using the top 25 worst passwords, according to SlashDot

• * From SplashData “The Worst Passwords of 2016”

• ** TheVerge.com article “Best Practices for Passwords”