Cyber criminals have one clear advantage most of the time- the obvious ratio of people who choose to ignore every instruction to create a strong password. Thus the gate lays open to hack accounts; both public and private ones.
Almost everyone who is familiar with the internet world is also familiar with the rules to create a strong password. However, those who follow them sincerely are very few in number. Here are some tips on how to create a strong password and stay safe from cyber-crime.
Stay clean
Building a password does not give you the liberty to remain carefree from then on. If you are genuinely concerned about your accounts, then it is necessary to ensure you’ve taken all the efforts. This includes a good security protection system that makes sure your system is safe from passwords capturing malware and other threats.
Length matters
This is almost the first rule that you might see- minimum character length. The longer your password, the tougher it gets to crack it. 12 to 16 characters in a password are sufficiently good enough. If you follow this, along with the other tricks to strengthen your password, be confident that your password is safe and hidden!
Ignore the obvious
Dictionary words, common phrases, obvious substitutions- stay away from them! Phrases like ‘White lily’, ‘whitelily123#’, ‘White Lily’, ‘wh!tel!ly@123’, etc., are obvious combinations that make a password easy to guess. Although the numeric and special character combinations are present in the examples above, they are quite obvious sequences and substitutions. ‘@’ for ‘a’, ‘0’ for ‘o’, ‘!’ for ‘i’ and the like should be avoided.
Master trick
The rule is- have a long password with combinations of letters, numbers, upper and lower case letters and special characters. Here is how you can do it. Come up with a scenario or a personal information that could embrace all the above. Let us say, “I work at P12 block. My room is No. 53A on #12 floor”. You can probably turn this into- IwaP12b.MriNo.53Ao#12f. Tricky enough for a password to crack? You can think of better and tougher ones that follow the same suite. Ensure, that the phrase stays personal!
Random and tight
Random words are tough to crack. Yet again, it is better if it is very random and very personal with a connection to help you remember it. ‘Sheets Propeller Aerosol Cannes’ is an example of a random set of words that have no obvious connection, but some connection you alone can think of. ‘SPAC’ makes a password that can be used along with some special characters and numbers.
Password Manager
Yes, there is a tool to make a strong password creation effortless. Password managers help you to create and remember passwords for all your accounts. In return, you would have to create one master password for the tool itself and from then on your job is taken care of. You can consider downloading or installing the tool to tighten security around your accounts.
One place at a time
Having the same password for different accounts is a bad idea. If you find it difficult to remember, take help from the tools. Never forget- One password for one account and change it over a period of time!
