“Create a strong password” isn’t just common-sense advice; it’s now often required for many online accounts. Strong passwords are one of the simplest ways to thwart hackers. The problem is that there is an inverse relationship between how memorable a password is and how complex it is.
Don’t worry; this article is here to help. You’ll learn how to create strong passwords, keep them safe, and make sure you’re never locked out of your accounts.
Let’s begin.
How Do Hackers Attack Passwords?
You might be wondering why you even need a strong password anyway. Most people believe they are not interesting for hackers. But that’s not true. Hackers may try to steal your identity to get some money from your family or friends. Or they can take advantage of your accounts with paid subscriptions to resell their credentials online.
Check eBay for Netflix accounts. Where do you think most of them come from?
And hackers have many different password-hacking techniques and tools at their disposal. After a data breach, the easiest one is buying your credentials on the dark web. And it isn’t even expensive. Apple ID login information, which is the most costly non-financial credential, sells for $15.39 on average. There’s a whole industry online revolving around this. And if you’ve been using the same weak passwords for years, your accounts may have already been hacked.
Hackers also have specialized software that can brute force attack passwords. It works by guessing thousands of passwords in seconds. In some cases, they use social engineering techniques to get users to reveal sensitive information. They can use it to guess passwords or answer security questions. No matter what, your passwords are always vulnerable.
How to Create Strong Passwords
Here are the traditional guidelines for creating strong passwords:
- Must be 12 characters or more. The longer a password is, the more difficult it is to guess. For example, the difference between wlcm and wlcmwl is a cracking time difference of 1 minute vs. 4 hours (based on my1login Password Strength Meter).
- Must include numbers, symbols, capital and lower-case letters. Mixing different characters makes the passwords more difficult to crack. As mentioned, hackers can crack wlcmwl in 4 hours. But WlcmWl!2 can take up to 22 years.
- Shouldn’t be a dictionary word or combination of words. Single words are terrible, but even a combination of a few words is bad. For example, house is an awful password. But Big House is not good enough either.
- Shouldn’t use obvious substitutions. Changing House to H0use is obvious and doesn’t make your password stronger.
Start experimenting. Think of something memorable to you that isn’t common. Let’s say your favorite restaurant in London is Dave’s Pub. Then your password could be the sentence “My favorite restaurant in London is Dave’s pub” with a few tweaks. For example, you can use only the first two letters and add a number or special character to make something like:
This password would take more than a lifetime to crack vs. dave’spub, which only takes 47 minutes.
Other Rules to Follow
Now that you’ve come up with your fabulous new password, it’s time to put it to use. The only problem is, you can only use it one location. You need to have unique passwords for all your online accounts.
And that’s not all. You also need to avoid social logins through Google or Facebook. That’s because, in case of a hack, these logins will make all your other accounts vulnerable.
Likewise, you need to be careful where you store passwords. Never store them in your email or on the notes app on your phone. These places are susceptible to a cyberattack. And, you must be careful of writing it down because you never know who might get their hands on your password.
Finally, you should create new passwords every 30-90 days. Or at least check whether your password didn’t suffer in a data breach so often, to know it’s still safe to use.
Is There an Easier Way?
Fortunately, you can have your cake and eat it too. You can use a password manager to store all your passwords in one secure location. The best password managers use high levels of encryption. It makes them pretty invincible against even the best hackers in the world.
You can use password managers not only to store passwords but also to create them for you. They generate passwords following all the guidelines listed above but making them even more random. It creates combinations that many humans could never remember, like 5qqeW@NSnWwUUCFZLa14, which would take millions of years (a.k.a. never) to crack.
You can use password managers across your devices as well. For example, you can take advantage of a Chrome password manager on your laptop. Meanwhile, download an app to your smartphone. The passwords will sync across all your devices, so you never have to worry about being locked out. Click here for more: https://nordpass.com/download/chrome/
Creating Strong Passwords Has Never Been Easier
Strong passwords are essential for your online security. And there’s no excuse not to use them – you can always create your own robust passwords. But if you’re looking for a more convenient and more secure solution, then try out password manager. All you’ll have to do is remember one password. Of course, make it as safe as possible, following all the guidelines above.
Keep in mind, though: nowadays, password security is not enough anymore. You can have the most reliable password out there, and it can still suffer in a data breach. Thus, make sure to use other practices to keep your accounts safe, for example, two-factor authentication.
