How to Keep Your Passwords Safe –Â An important element to keeping your private information private is protect that information with a robust and strong password. Selecting a password that is neither robust nor strong can give a helping hand to those that want to help themselves to your private information.
So how to keep your passwords safe is very important. It also is very easy to accomplish. Here are five simple guidelines on how to keep your passwords safe.
- Keep your passwords private.
Even though you have close friends, never share your passwords. Those closest to you may have earned your trust, yet even if they don’t deliberately misuse your passwords, they might write your password some place that’s not safe, or accidentally reveal your password to someone else.
- Use different passwords, everywhere.
Do you have just one key that universally unlocks your car, your house, your safety deposit box? No, didn’t think so. For the same reason that you have different keys, you shouldn’t use the same password for different things on the Internet. Why? Well, if your email password gets cracked, and you are using the same password for your bank account and credit card, what’s going to happen? There can very well be a very big problem on your hands.
- The longer the better.
It is far better to create a long password than a short password. If your passwords contain a variety of lower case letters, upper case letters, symbols and numbers then that is even better. Passphrases (passwords based on a unique phrase known only to you) are the most ideal.
- Be unique.
Do you know what some of the world’s most popular passwords are? They include the word qwerty, 12345678, and the word Password. While those passwords are definitely easy to enter and remember, please avoid those passwords, and others like them, at all costs. Any password that is based on keyboard patterns, numerical sequences, or dictionary words is weak and will be easy to crack.
Here’s a tip we received from a reader. Test out your choice for a password here – http://comparitech.net/password-strength
What sets their tool apart is that they have collected data on the most frequently used passwords. That means that if a user enters a password that is very common (and therefore likely easy to guess) you are informed so that you can avoid it. Pretty cool!
- Don’t enter passwords on public computers.
Do you think twice or three times about using a public fountain? You do that for good reasons. Who knows who was there last using the fountain? That same is true about a public computer. Public computers may be infected with malware that copies passwords or logs keystrokes. You just don’t know who was using that computer last, and what they did. If you’re in public, safely surf the Internet using your own device and use an application that safeguards you while on public WiFi.
If you liked these tips on how to keep your passwords safe you will find many more practical and useful tips in The Complete Guide to Computer Security… for Mere Mortals. The security and privacy of your personal information is within your control. Read the report and start to protect yourself now.
Here is a video from Frederick D. our Computer Security Expert… See what he has to say here about Computer Security Solutions.
We’d like to thank our friends at ZoneAlarm.com for compiling much of the above information. They have even more steps, 14 of them in fact, to consider for your passwords here.