Passwords: Protect Yourself from Getting Hacked

With all of the great advances in the internet, we have access to anything from using email and social media, to shopping and managing bank accounts in seconds. However, because everything  is so easily accessible, we need to be weary that as easy as it is for us to access our private accounts, it can be just as easy for someone else to get a hold of our information as well.

One of the easiest ways of getting hacked is through passwords. Whether they are too generic or built from easy-to-find information, passwords are at a high risk of getting compromised if they are simple. Therefore, just as you would protect yourself from intruders in the real world, you can take steps with your passwords to protect yourself in the cyber world.

Birthdays and Middle Names

Birthdays and middle names are available to any friend on Facebook and Myspace, and worse, sometimes available with a simple Google search. Setting your password to either or even a combination of both is a major risk and needs to be avoided.

Make it Unusual

In November Time Magazine published SplashData’s most popular passwords of 2011. Password, 123456, qwerty, ashley, and iloveyou, were amongst the top 25. It’s safe to say that if any of your passwords fall in to the top used passwords, you run a risk for getting hacked. Protect your accounts by adding series of numbers, lowercase letters, and symbols to your passwords.

Diversify!

Using different passwords for every account is the difference between getting your email hacked and compromising all personal information you access online. Once hackers get into your email, they can see what banks you use, where you shop, dine, have social media accounts, etc., just from scrolling through your emails. If you use the same password for all of your accounts and one gets hacked, you may as well have compromised it all.

Where to Store it All?

Remembering dozens of passwords for all our online accounts is unrealistic, so some companies have come out with great “vaults” for storing your passwords. SplashID is a great password manager that syncs with most smart phones as well as the iPad and is both easy to manage and secure. Other popular password managers include 1Password, Keeper Security and LastPass.