Secure Your Passwords
by Isiah MorrellFrazier
Introduction: Passwords
Everyday technology is getting more advanced, and as it does so do the knowledge of the hackers. Especially with more and more people wanting to become hackers because of the serious damage and money they can make. This personally affects everyone as most have personal/sensitive information online. That is where passwords come in, it is very important to have a secure/strong password that will give hackers difficulty getting in or blocking them access at all.
Having a strong password can teach you just to be responsible and taking the necessary steps to protect your online safety.
Use lengthy passwords as well, as the more length the more guesses the hacker will have to do. Also doesn’t hurt to use symbols such as $,@,!,?,* and using multiple of them isn’t a bad idea either.
Having a strong password is important, but it is also important to make sure that you are changing it up every 30-90 days. A lot of people never change their password even once.
It is also very important that you are not using the same password for every site. If a site gets breached and the data is leaked, you could be in serious trouble. If you’re using the same password for other sites hackers can just use your email and that password for other sites because you use the password for everything.
As shown simple passwords like these can be accessed easily
as multiple people might use them and their very common.
“Don’t use your name or names of family members or pets in your passwords. Don’t use numbers like your address, phone number, or birthdays, either. These can be publicly available, on forms you fill out or on social media profiles, and easily accessible to hackers.”
-Norton Security
One tip is to think of a passphrase, like a line from a song, and then use the first letter from each word, substituting numbers for some of the letters. For example: “100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” could become “10oBb0tW”.
Things to remember:
- F2A (Two Step Verification)
- Security Basics (Keeping your System, Browser, Software up to date)
- Firewall / Anti Virus (Helps make it hard for hackers to gain access to your device)
- Suspicious Activity (Watch carefully for any unusual activity that wasn’t you)
Conclusion
Above shows a graph of common passwords between 2010-2020 and how many times they were used. This is very bad as hackers have the information and knowledge that many people do this and will try the most common passwords when breaching your device.
I believe that strong passwords are very important. One password is what is blocking a hacker from getting your information. Without a strong password you might as well give the hackers your information yourself.
References
