It has become easier than ever for hackers to break in. Be prepared!
Do you know someone that’s been hacked? Has a friend’s Facebook account ever started to send you SPAM ads? Do you know anyone who’s had a more serious hack, such as having their PayPal or online banking account broken into?
In recent years, hackers have been breaking into web accounts more and more frequently. Thankfully, you can prevent this simply by having strong passwords on all of your Internet accounts.
Read on to discover out top tips for making your passwords as strong as possible, and we’ve also got a handy tool you can try out that will tell you exactly how strong your passwords are!
Here are the most important things to consider when updating your passwords:
- Never use the same passwords across different accounts. Hackers are often trying to break into other accounts using hacked passwords. You can never be sure which web servers are protecting your passwords properly, and which are vulnerable. If this is too much to remember, you should write your passwords down.
- Make all your passwords 12 characters or longer. Short passwords are much easier to guess with the “brute force” method (meaning trying over and over again until you get the right answer).
- Include UPPERCASE and lowercase letters. This makes your passwords mathematically much harder to guess.
- Include numbers and symbols. This also makes your password much harder to guess. Make sure you include them in random places in your passwords. Hackers know people usually put uppercase letters at the beginning, and numbers and symbols at the end of their passwords.
- Avoid known words. Instead, try creating a random string of letters. For example, think of a sentence no one knows but you, then use the first two letters of each word in your password.
- Inc0rp0r4t1ng numb3rs. One trick you can use is to incorporate numbers into your words. For example, substitute “3” for “e”, “1” for “i”, “5” for ”s”, etc.
- Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Chicago have created an awesome tool you can use to create your passwords. Unlike many websites, it won’t just tell you your password is “good” or “bad”. Instead, it gives real advice on how to improve it and why not to do certain things.
You can access the tool here and try making your passwords with it!