How To keep Your Password Secured.
There is no any doubt that the password has the higher monetary value to the cyber-criminals. In modern days people are being aware of it but unable to change their habit of reusing the same password, in many cases they use the simple passwords (most of the time the breached passwords). Since in modern days our account contains way too much personnel information and banking information, so hackers are using some techniques to guess the passwords. Suppose a hacker got a password through any means (probably social engineering- The art of exploiting the human trust) of a user then the probability of the user using same password is very high. So, if use reuse the password, then the probability of getting compromised is very high. The following tips can be used to create a strong password.
Do not use the real English word:
In modern days password cracking tools are very effective at helping the hackers/attackers to guess your passwords. They can use the word available in dictionary and also can-do mutation (add different combination in front and any place of word).
You can defeat this behavior by adding the complexity such as use ‘@’ or ‘4’ or’&’ in- place of ‘a’, use ‘0(zero)’ or ‘()’ in-place of ‘0’, use ‘3’in-place of ‘E’, use ‘7’ in-place of ‘T’ and vice versa etc. Let’s see it in example by following above guide.
Simple password: ‘password’
Strong password: ‘P4$$w0RD’.
Note: Don’t use the above example password as it is one of the frequently used
password.
Do not use Personal information:
Many people have the habit of creating the password using their own name and date-of- birth and use some family members name and their DOB and even their pet’s name. If you have habit of using this type of password creating scheme then be alert, hackers/attackers are too smart and can find your behavior if they started monitoring your behavior.
Create long passwords:
If you use 7-character password then cracking time of this password is low and if you increase it to 8 then the time increases exponentially high and if you go beyond this then for attacker it will be difficult to guess and crack even using modern system. It is recommended to use password from 13 to 20 character long (according to industry standard), If you have used this much long and non-dictionary password then the probability of your password being guessed is very-very low.
Change the password on a regular basis:
Passwords for your online financial accounts should be changed every month or two. Computer login passwords should be changed at least once a quarter. Using the same password for longer periods could put your information at risk if a data breach occurs. Even you can use your own password expiring scheme to be more secured.
Don’t write them down:
I’ve seen people have habit of writing down the password and taking screen-shot of password, which is totally unhygienic way to keep the password. If a hacker somehow managed to get that password, then s/he can take-over your account. It will be easy win to them. So don’t write your password even in paper as it can be easily accessed by hackers.
Don’t overuse a password:
So now you have a strong password. What can make it vulnerable is using that one password for every application and website. If one gets hacked, you’ll need to reset all your passwords! No one wants to do that. Even don’t mutate the same password if you changed it. For e.g. if your old password was ‘simplepassword’ then don’t change it as ‘simplepassword123’ or ‘12simplepasssword3’ as this behavior can be predicted by some password generating software.
