Five easy steps to create strong passwords

We’ve been on the internet for more than 20 years yet we have not gotten the hang of protecting our passwords properly. Password security is an important aspect of the digital world and unfortunately, not a lot of internet users are aware of this.

Security experts confirm most people’s passwords are easy-to-guess. According to them, the most commonly used passwords are “1234567” and “password”. If you’re using any of these as your password, you may want to go ahead and change them immediately.

Generating strong passwords is an art and like every art form, certain rules must be applied to create a masterpiece.

Here are some tips to help you generate strong passwords for all your accounts:

Use Numbers And Symbols

You may have come across suggestions on digital platforms urging you to include numbers and symbols when drafting out a password for the site. This is for your own good.

Randomly mixing up numbers, symbols, uppercases, for a password will make it harder to hack. Consider substituting the first letter of a password using uppercase.

When securing passwords, an important fact to note is that the shorter and more predictable a password is, the easier it’d be to crack open. For this reason, make your passwords as difficult to guess as possible.

In addition to this, another way to generate strong passwords is to use non-existence words which are not found in the dictionary or literature. Another way to achieve this is to misspell regular words through the use of symbols and numbers. For instance this password; “flowergirl94” can be easily substituted for “F10w3rg1rl94” to make it stronger.

Make Passwords Long

As mentioned earlier, shorter passwords are prone to be easily guessed. Therefore, the logical way to ensure your password is stronger is to keep it longer. Hackers will usually use the try and guess method to guess people’s passwords so keeping it short lengthens this process.

If you can, combine words together or make up a word of your own to create a long password.

Limit The Use Of Personal Information

Recall how you’ve had to stalk someone online? Perhaps an ex, sibling, or friend? Isn’t it funny how much information you can gather about them from just going through their social media platforms? Hackers are like that when they’re trying to hack an account.

Using your personal information such as age, location, name, and information of family and friends.

Most times, when security questions are required in creating passwords, this mistake of using personal info can occur. So next time you encounter a security question such as “What’s your mother’s maiden name?” answer with a false response. However, note this down somewhere so as not to forget.

Do Not ReCycle Or ReUse Passwords

 Most of us have been using the same password for years. And while this seems convenient, it is in fact a huge risk.

Worse still, making use of the same password across many accounts is a huge risk. Should one of your accounts be hacked, this means that other accounts with the same password will be compromised.

Change Your Passwords Regularly

 It is advisable to switch up your passwords [especially for sensitive accounts] regularly. Some experts advise doing this after every 90 days. After changing your password, try not to reuse the older password until after a long time.

In addition to following these guidelines, pay attention to email notifications alerting you to login activities to your accounts. Should your account ever be hacked, email the IT support of the platform and inform your followers, friends, and family about the development so as not to let them fall victim to fraudsters and con artists.