Having a safe password is a key component to your safety online.
Most of us think ‘they won’t bother with me’ – which is how identity theft grows rampantly. When cyber criminals get hold of passwords they can do all sorts of things from impersonating you to get things like credit cards, access to your other email accounts or cloud saved documents, or even empty your bank accounts. At the absolute best you spend hours resetting everything and sadly it’s all downhill from there.
Strong passwords are essential. In their analysis of the global data breaches, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) in 2019 found that the number one password used (cracked) was 123456.
If you want to check if any of your email addresses have been found in a data breach then go to google and search on ‘has my email been breached’ and the first result is likely to be ‘haveibeenpowned.com’ (it’s safe). You might be surprised. To avoid that ever happening – make sure your password(s) are worthy of defending your important info! Creating strong passwords is worth the time and with a bit of creative thought can be impenetrable. Here are some tips on how to be smarter than the 123456’er’s 1. Think of a word that is meaningful or special to you. To demonstrate let’s use the word ‘special’ 2. Make some of the letters capitals or lowercase – e.g. SPECial 3. Add some numbers in there - say in the middle - that mean something to you – SPEC47ial 4. Consider a silly word at the beginning or the end e.g. AvengersSPEC47ial 5. Maybe add a few characters in there e.g. AvengersSPEC47ial@$) 6. And because it’s assumed you’ll stick to your native language, maybe add a foreign word e.g. AvengersSPEC47ial@$)Bleu A mix or words, characters, numbers that means something to you but would definitely confuse anyone else, means you’ll have a solid and secure password. Some other good ideas:
Don’t use the same password for all your accounts
If you’re out and about using public wifi - use a VPN to stop people intercepting your username and password. If it’s your work computer this should be in place – ask an admin.
Don’t write your password down - and never on a post it note stuck to your computer!! If anyone can wander past, they can clock in and try on another machine.
Use multi-factor authentication systems wherever available. All the major email providers and things like Google and Microsoft365 offer this. It means a separate device like your phone is used to text an additional code or you get a code sent to another email address, but it’s well worth it.
Run your virus software regularly. If there is malware or things like keyloggers that can copy everything you write – then they’ll get caught!
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