Even after several repeated security breaches reported on various websites, people are still using weak passwords for their online accounts. Internet security is a serious issue and weak passwords are the major reason for most security-related issues. If your password is ‘123145’ or ‘123456789’ or ‘qwerty’ or ‘11111’ or ‘abc123’ or ‘password1’ it is the time to change it immediately. There are a number of passwords that are frequently used by thousands of users are easy to guess. some of them are ‘iloveyou’, ‘dragon’, ‘monkey, ‘password’, ‘welcome’ and ‘superman’. You can see the list of most common passwords in Wikipedia. Check whether you are using the same change your passwords immediately to protect your accounts.
To secure your online accounts you should use highly secure and difficult to guess passwords using the combination of lower and upper case letters, numbers, punctuation, and symbols. There are different ways to obtain a password like the Brute force method, dictionary attack, phishing, etc. In Brute force attach the hackers to use some software to try different combinations of letters to find yours. In a dictionary attack, the attacker uses a list of prearranged words such as words in a dictionary. The phishing method will use to obtain your password using some mimicking links of you online or bank accounts. Here are some password generators to generate secure random passwords by just clicking a button.
Passwordsgenerator
(https://passwordsgenerator.net/)
To protect your passwords from being hacked by brute force or dictionary attack method do not use the same password, security question and answer for multiple online accounts. This site will help you to generate random passwords with symbols, numbers, lowercase characters, and uppercase characters.
LastPass
(https://www.lastpass.com/)
Some studies reveal that 80% of hacking-related breaches are due to weak or stolen passwords. LastPass password generator helps you to generate impossible-to-crack passwords using numbers, letters, and symbols. The password generator tool from LastPass runs locally on your Windows, Mac or Linux computer, and on your iOS or Android device.
Create a secure password
To create a strong password you should consider a few things. You should use a password that has at least 16 characters, use at least one number, one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one special symbol. The more type of special symbols in your password the attacker needs more tries and computing resources to guess your credentials. Most sites have features to block multiple password attempts. The more complex is your password the more difficult to guess it.
It is advisable, not to use the names of your families, friends or pets, postcodes, house numbers, phone numbers, birthdates, ID card numbers, social security numbers in your passwords. Try not to log in to important accounts on the computers of others, or on public Wi-Fi hotspot, free VPN or web proxy. Do not send sensitive information online via unencrypted connections. Try to use encrypted connections such as HTTPS whenever possible. I strongly recommended changing your passwords every 10 weeks. Do not use common dictionary words as your passwords, because it is easy to guess. Use different passwords for different accounts.
Turn on 2-step authentication if available. Don’t leave your devices unlocked when you are away, lock your computer and mobile phone when you leave them. Do not share your passwords with anybody in the email. Encrypt and backup your passwords to different locations, if you lost access to your computer or account, you can easily retrieve your passwords. There are some password managers available to store your passwords like Google password manager. Google password manager helps you to view and manage passwords you’ve saved in Chrome or Android.
