Essential Password Safety Tips

Your password is the first line of defense against cyber attacks. With phishing, identity theft and other Internet crimes becoming more frequent everyday, it is important to choose a password that cannot be easily guessed or deduced by others. An ideal password is one that is easy to remember, hard to forget, and harder to crack. You can create a good password by following the Teqknow tips offered below

• Create unique paswords

When you use the same password on multiple websites you are at risk of having hijackers figure out and steal your password from a less secured website and use it to access other important online accounts. Use unique passwords for your accounts, especially the more important ones like those for e-mail and online banking.

• Change password often

Even if you are using a hard-to-guess password, it is not impossible for a hacker to crack the password, it will just take him more time. A hacker can keep accessing your account or network as long as the password is valid. Updating your password regularly, will significantly limit the utility of that password to the hacker. This is why you should change your passwords periodically.

• Combine letters, numbers, and symbols

By combining numbers, symbols and both lower and upper case letters in your password you make it a lot more difficult for others to guess or crack your password. This might blow your mind but, Did you know that an 8-character password with numbers, symbols, and mixed-case letters has more than 6,000,000,000,000,000 possible variations? :O

• Keep it in a secret place

Never leave your password written on notes at your computer or desk. Anyone walking by can easily steal and use it to access your accounts. If you want to save your passwords in a file on your computer, make sure to use a unique name for that file that does not reveal what type of information is contained in the file. You must avoid obvious names such as "My Passwords" when naming a file. Another solution is to use a password manager, a software that helps a user organize passwords and PIN codes. There are many of these available as a desktop software, portable applications, or web based service. Spend some time researching them, checking their reputation, and reading reviews. The time and effort you invest in researching them will help you select the one that best suits your password-security needs.

• Use a phrase acronym

You can create an acronym with the first letters of the words in a phrase or sentence and use it in a password. For example, from the sentence "Johnny, Johnny, Yes, Papa, Eating sugar? No, Papa", you would get "jjypesnp". Using an acronym makes the password easy to remember but difficult to guess.

• Keep recovery options updated and secure

Keep any e-mail address you use for recovering and resetting your password updated. The same goes for any phone number that you use to receive password reset codes by text message. There are also many websites that let you choose a question to verify your identity if you ever forget your password. Make sure to create a question-answer combo that only you know and can't be guessed from information already posted online. You can also make your answer unique by typing it in an unusual way so others won't be able to enter the answer properly.

• Make it hard for others to guess

Always create a password that is unrelated to your personal information. Don't use simple words like "password" or "letmein,"or keyboard patterns such as "qwerty", or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234", which would make your password easier to guess. Choose a random word or phrase, and insert letters, numbers, and symbols into the beginning, middle, and end to make it much more difficult to guess.

• Add extra measures of security

Another way you can add an extra layer of security is by enabling a 2-step verification process. Although, not all Internet accounts provide this option, some like Google do. The 2-step verification process requires you to have access to your phone, your username and password to sign in. If someone else steals your password, they can't sign in to your account because they don't have your phone. You are now protected with something that only you know and something that only you have, your pasword and your phone.

• Never ever share your password with anyone

You know this, right? ;)

We hope the information in this article helps you protect your password and online accounts.