Quick Overview...You’d be surprised how easy it is to crack passwords. There’s software freely available for anyone to start trying to hack passwords and not all online sites are as secure as they should be, so you have to be on guard and take passwords seriously.If you have easy to hack passwords, you’ll almost certainly find yourself hacked at some point. If your password is a word in the dictionary, is a family or pet name, is a celebrity or is a common password like “wizard” or “snoopy” then it takes only seconds for a program to crack it or for someone to guess it after two or three attempts. This article will help you choose strong passwords and develop a password strategy to use for Email and general internet browsing. Detailed instructions... |
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| Step: #1 Implications |
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If someone can crack, or guess or hack your password for one website that you log in to, then potentially they can start hacking more. Email should have a very secure password because this is often where other websites send password notifications and reminders. Whilst you might think that a simple password for your Amazon account might be okay, think about the personal details and card details they hold for you that could potentially be compromised.
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| Step: #2 Key things to remember. |
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| Step: #3 Strategies |
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It’s always good to have a system. Simple password systems are notoriously hard to crack because only you know the system.There’s hundreds of easy ways to ensure your passwords are secure and memorable, here’s a few ideas...
The Fake Secret QuestionIf you forget your password, some sites will happily disclose this to a potential hacker by answering a simple question that may well be public knowledge. It may ask you for your mothers maiden name, the place you were born or your shoe size. Without knowing too much about you, it’s fairly easy to guess these if someone wanted to, especially if they had pieces of other informatio For example, someone wants to crack your hotmail password. Your hotmail address is barney0781_uk@. From this they know your name, you’re from the UK and you were probably born July 1981. If they then had your phone number, or just the code, they know where you live and that’s probably where you were born too. They’ve found your Facebook page too so know all about you: your best friend, where you party, how tall you are, what colour eyes you have…. See how easy it is? The solution is fake secret answers…Question: Where were you born Answer: Benidorm (your favourite holiday destination instead) Question: What’s your shoe size Answer: brown (your eye colour) 3-password strategyThe difficult part is remembering without writing them down! It’s sometimes helpful to have a system of some sort and then write down clues to that system until typing your passwords becomes second nature. You’ll soon find that these strange combinations of letters become second nature to type (they actually become easier to type than remember) For example. Lets say you have 3 passwords. Password1 – is for not important stuff, easy to type and easy to remember – “b4nana50“ Password2 – is a more secure version of my easy password – “18$b4nanan50£“ Password3 is much more secure and different to my others, use it for online banking – “$n4ilsr4sn0wwh1te?!” – the more random the better, who’s going to guess my password is “snails are 4 snow white” – even if I tell them how will they know to replace some of the letters? This would also be the type of password you would use for Keychain and software like 1Password. Then, consider changing your passwords every six months or every year, even if only by one or two characters.Different Password for each site strategyRemember – some websites know that most people use the same password for every site so they will ask you to create a login username and password and then use that or sell that on to hackers. The best advice is to use software like 1password and have a different password for every site you visit. Or have a system whereby you incorporate the website into your password so they are always different – like amaz!b4rneyru88le – the first four letters being the first 4 letters of the website you are on. |
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