They often say ‘convenience serves mankind’. The entire top ten of most commonly used passwords in the Netherlands consists of combinations that are easy to remember. Think of ‘123456’, ‘qwerty’ or ‘welkom01’. This has been shown in various studies.
Unfortunately, online fraud still occurs frequently. How can you best protect yourself against hackers? I’m happy to give you five useful tips!
1. Use long and complex passwords
A common method hackers use to crack passwords is by simply trying all possible combinations of numbers, letters, and special characters. For example, a four-digit password has 10,000 different possible combinations. A computer can crack this within one second! The number of different characters in your password determines how many combinations are possible and how much longer it takes a hacker to crack it. Because computers are getting faster at cracking passwords, it’s recommended to use passwords with at least ten (but the more, the better) characters, consisting of lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and special characters. Nowadays, you can often use a full sentence as a password, for example, “In 2008 I bought my first car!”. This is often easier to remember, but due to the large number of characters, it is nearly uncrackable by a computer.
2. Use unique passwords
Many people use their passwords in more than one place. However, this is a risk. When a password from one account leaks, the other accounts are immediately in danger. So make sure you always use unique passwords for all the different accounts you have. Predictable passwords are also easy to crack. If you use “Facebook*2019!” for Facebook, for example, it is, of course, easy to figure out which password you use for your Twitter account. Or which password you might use for both accounts in 2020. It’s also better not to use children’s names, birth dates, or other easily obtainable personal information in a password.
3. Use a password manager
Many people have dozens of accounts on different services and websites. If you have followed the tips above, you now have dozens of unique, long, and complex passwords to remember. To make this easier, it’s advisable to use a password manager. This is a program where you can securely and encryptedly store all your passwords. In addition, a password manager often gives you the ability to generate secure, random passwords and to check the strength of your passwords.
4. Use two-factor authentication
To prevent someone from accessing your accounts if your password is leaked, you can use two-factor authentication. This means you must take an extra step when you want to log in with your password. Think, for example, of entering an extra code you receive via SMS, accepting the login attempt via a push notification on your smartphone, or even entering a fingerprint. This way, a hacker can never log in with just your password!
5. Check your passwords and change them regularly!
Websites are regularly hacked, and the data of thousands or even millions of users is posted online! In some cases, this includes passwords. Security researcher Troy Hunt collects and analyzes data from these data breaches. On his website https://haveibeenpwned.com/ you can check if your accounts appear in leaked datasets. You can also receive a notification as soon as an email address linked to your domain name or organization appears in the leaked data. Is this the case? Then it’s a good idea to reset the passwords of all accounts where you’ve used this password. It’s also wise to periodically—for example, every quarter—change your passwords. The password for your email address is especially important here, as it often gives access to several other accounts.
More information?
I hope the above tips help you on your way to choosing and using strong passwords. It goes without saying that as a Managed Hosting Provider, we attach great importance to strong passwords, and we maintain a strict password policy. Want to know more about information security? Please contact us.
