Strong Passwords

Want to keep hackers out of your life, at least for the time being? Well, all you have to do is create strong passwords. That’s it! Whether you use the internet for business or personal use, you will need to create strong passwords for all of your online accounts to protect them from hackers. The following are a few creative strategies that hackers use to steal passwords online.

1. Phishing Scams
Phishing scams are the new norm these days. The ultimate goal of a professional phishing scammer is to bate and hook people with high priority email messages. For instance, one common phishing scam is a fake email message about updating a user’s bank account or credit card information. The email will read: “Important Notice About Your Account” or “Important Details About Your Last Money Transaction”.

A person is hooked once they click onto the link provided within the email. The link usually leads to a fake website designed to trick people into giving their personal banking username and password, credit card numbers, date of birth, SSN, etc. If you ever receive one of these emails, simply ignore it and report the email to your email account system. Never click onto the link provided within the email.

2. Shoulder Surfing

With shoulder surfing, your passwords are stolen offline. Usually, the hacker lurks around internet cafes, libraries computer rooms, and even popular computer stores. As the computer user is logging into an account to check emails or to check their bank balance, the shoulder surfer spies on them in order to capture their password. To avoid being spied on by a shoulder surfer, make sure you type in your passwords as quickly as possible. Some shoulder surfers are just as savvy as military spies who can read lips.

3. The Guessing Game

Many hackers use programs that are designed specifically to guess a person’s password. They basically search for personal information found on the web (birth dates, names, friends’ names, wedding anniversary dates, etc). When creating online passwords, make sure you stay away from using words that can be easily identified.

4. Dictionary Word Raid

Some hackers use software that will actually breeze through dictionary words from a-z and try to match it with usernames. So, you may want to avoid using actual words when you create strong passwords. For instance, let’s say that you want to use the word ‘cookbook’ – instead of using the ‘o’ word, replace them with zeros. This will make your username more complicated for potential hackers. You may also want to try to use long complex words by incorporating lower case, upper case, numbers and other characters.

Tips to Create Strong Passwords

• Try using characters such as: @#!*(-%+=
• Use lower and upper-case letters.
• Create strong passwords which are long and complicated. Avoid short passwords. Passwords should be at least 8-15 characters.
• Put punctuation marks and numbers within your password.
• Create passwords that can be typed in fast.
• Make sure your passwords are easy to remember. For instance, let’s say you use – ‘Catch 22’ becomes “cAtchtwenty2”.

Where should you keep your passwords? Most experts will advise people to avoid writing down their passwords. So, how are you supposed to remember your password if it’s unique? Simply hide it on a sheet of paper discretely in your wallet. That way, you don’t have to spend ages trying to remember a password.

Lastly, to protect your passwords, make sure you change them as often as possible. The recommended time to change passwords is at least every 1-2 months.

Follow these tips to create strong passwords by Flying Cow Design, a reputed web design company and save your information from getting into the hands of online frauds.