The recent attack that resulted in millions of Adobe users getting their login information stolen revealed many still use easy to guess passwords.
It is always important to protect your online accounts with strong passwords to help make sure your account stays hacker-free.
But this advice is lost on millions of online account holders who still opt to use weak, easy to guess passwords, as an attack on software company Adobe has revealed. In fact over 1.9 million users chose to use the password “123456” analysis has suggested.
Weak passwords are susceptible to brute force attacks, either manual or automated. Computer criminals know what the popular permutations of passwords are, and if you’re using one then the chances of having your account compromised increase dramatically. In fact many financial accounts such as PayPal force users to pick stronger passwords with on-the-spot password evaluating code.
So, when choosing a password, try to follow this advice to help keep your accounts secure.
Avoid duplicate passwords
If your password is discovered by a computer criminal then that’s bad enough, but the last thing you want is for that criminal to use that same password to access all of your online accounts! Criminals know that a substantial percentage of Internet users use the same password for many different online accounts so make sure they don’t get access to everything just be discovering one password. Also avoid using previous passwords that you have used.
Avoid popular passwords
Certain passwords are used more than others. Like “123456” or “password” or the name of the site with the letter 1 after it. These are often the first example criminals will use when trying to gain access to your account, so don’t let them be successful!
Avoid just words
Specific attacks such as brute force attacks have a higher chance of grabbing your password if it is just a single word. Such attacks can work their way through a long string of words until the correct one is used. Of software can compare stolen encrypted passwords to a database of words to look for matches.
Avoid personal information
Avoid using personal information about yourself in your password, such as your date of birth, name or pet names.
A strong password will…
Contain a mixture of lowercase letters, uppercase letters and numbers and is at least 8 characters long.
Added advice…
Many accounts allow users to use secret questions for account recovery – kind of like a backdoor that bypasses the password requirement. If you use a secret question then make sure the answer to that question isn’t publically available on any of your social media accounts! You won’t believe how many users unwittingly publish their secret question answers on their Facebook accounts, leaving their online accounts practically open to anyone capable of basic Internet searches!