Use Passwords Wisely to Increase Security

Over the past few months, there have been reports of several high profile hacks, in which consumer data has been exposed. Sometimes even passwords are being exposed. In these times, it’s important to have a good system in place to manage passwords to your sensitive accounts.

 

You want to Secure Your Data

Keeping your personal information safe in this perilous age can seem like quite a challenge, but a little effort can go a long way in protecting your data. Here are some tips on password management.

Passwords Secure Your Data; You must Secure Your Passwords

The first step in keeping your personal accounts personal (and not in the hands of malicious people) is to keep your passwords secure. That means, don’t give your passwords to someone you don’t trust.

Don’t Write Your Passwords Down

Of course you know not to go around telling people what the password to your bank’s website is, but keeping a post-it note with your password on it and stuck to your computer monitor can be just as risky. Anyone walking by your desk at work or (God forbid) who might break into your house could get their hands on those passwords. It’s best not to write your passwords down at all, but if you have trouble remembering your passwords and have to write them down, keep that password list in a very secure place (i.e. in a locked drawer).

Beware of Phishing Attacks

Another important part of keeping your passwords secure is to be careful who you give them to over the internet. There are myriad emails sent every day that appear to be legitimate emails from banks, financial institutions, or other web sites that ask you to verify your account. These attempts, called “phishing attacks,” are another way your passwords can be compromised. Most, if not all, legitimate websites will not send you emails that ask for your login credentials. If something seems suspicious, go directly to the web site’s URL to login (e.g. Chase.com) instead of clicking on the link in the email.

Use Strong Passwords

Sometimes hackers use a “brute force” attack to attempt to guess a user’s password. These are black hat programs that will run through various character combinations to try to find the correct sequence of characters that will unlock your personal data.

For this reason, it is important to use strong passwords. Strong passwords use a combination of capital and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters. For example, if your user name is Joe Smith, the password “joesmith1” is not going to be very difficult to guess. In fact, that wouldn’t be a strong password for anyone. It’s best if your password does not include any names or words in a dictionary. The best passwords have no resemblance to anything found in human language.

To make a password like this, you can pick a random combination of characters on your own. Write them down so that you can memorize the combination, and then destroy the note you made for yourself. Alternatively you can use an online password generator.

But Hackers Get Your Password by Other Means …

“Those are some good ideas, SLee,” you say, “but I thought you were talking about data breaches when hackers access these legitimate site’s databases and extract user information.” Good point, you clever reader. The ideas above are some things that you can do on your own, but what can you do about hackers getting your credentials from your trusted sites?

Using the above tips are the best place to start in securing your data. But what can you do when the companies you trust don’t protect your passwords?

Don’t Reuse Passwords

One of the best things that you can do to further the security of your passwords, and thus the security of your data, is to use unique passwords for each of your accounts. If you are using the same passwords for all your accounts and a hacker gets access to a database for one of those accounts, that hacker would then have the password to all of your accounts. That’s not secure. To prevent that from happening, use a different password for each of your highly sensitive accounts. At the least, this would mean your primary email and any financial institutions. I would recommend having a different password for every account, though, for optimal security.

Change Your Passwords Frequently

In addition to using different passwords, it is also important to change your passwords frequently. Despite all their efforts to keep their databases secure, sometimes web sites and companies you trust can be the victim of an attack, and sometimes this can be done without their knowledge. Don’t wait for those companies to alert you of an attack; be proactive in your security. By keeping your passwords updated and fresh you can render useless any forward momentum that a hacker may have made.

Conclusion

Keep your passwords secure and be confident in the security of your data.