5 Tips For Strong Passwords

A secure and robust lock is necessary for the house’s main door, the same way a strong and secure password is essential for an account. We use the internet for various purposes and create an account on several sites such as social media sites, university websites, forums, helpdesks, and more.

It is necessary to keep all of these passwords healthy and safe from data breach and someone who can guess our password easily. In case you find it difficult to memorize your password, https://nordpass.com/password-manager/ will help you out by saving your passwords securely and auto-filling them on the sites when you try to log in.

So, to keep your passwords safe and secure, you need to follow these five tips to secure your passwords. Make sure you follow the tips and change your passwords right after reading this article.

Tips to Keep Your Passwords Secure

  1. Password Manager

You should first get a password manager, which can help you generate strong and secure passwords and save it securely in its database. You don’t have to remember your password every time you try to log in to a site.

One such password manager I would suggest to you is NordPass Password manager, a product by the NordVPN guys who are actively creating software to help people keep their data secure.

The best part about using password managers is that you only have to remember the password of the password manager. All of the other passwords will be captured by the software, which will then be kept secure and ready whenever you wish to log in to the site.

  1. Do not use personal information.

Another useful tip to keep your passwords secure is by not using your personal information in the password. For instance, if your name is Robin and your date of birth is 23 March 2000, do not keep your password Robin23032000. This is very easy to crack, and such passwords can be easily cracked using dictionary attacks and other hacking scripts.

Moreover, this type of password is an easy guess, and even your family member from whom you are trying to secure your password will find it out and get access to your account and other information.

  1. Stop Reusing Old passwords.

When the old passwords get compromised in a data breach, hackers keep those passwords and emails in their databases and also leak them online in forums and sometimes on the dark web. So, to play safe, it is advised not to reuse the same password on every site, as one site gets compromised, the chances of an attack on other accounts increase.

So, do not use the same password on every site and also do not use the old and breached password on any other site.

  1. Use special characters and capital letters.

This is necessary on a majority of sites to keep their user data secure and safe from breaches. While creating a password, make sure you use a capital alphabet, a special character, and at least one number.

You can use multiple capital letters, numbers, and special characters while creating passwords to make it more secure and safe from hackers. For example, I Love Hiking in April With Lily can be used as a password, IloveHiking@5with#Lily.

  1. Keep Changing Passwords Periodically

Another practical tip to keep your passwords secure is by changing it from time to time. One should change the password every three months and not use the same old password on any other site or the same site again.

Sometimes, the site’s passwords are compromised, and the user and owner have no information about the breach. In this way, the security of the account gets compromised, and the password is leaked online.

  1. Using numbers and letters to create sentences

Creating a password with alphanumeric characters is hard to crack. Instead of using the traditional words and numbers password, like meowmeow23, you can use numbers in the form of letters.

For example, meowmeow23 can be written as, m3owm3owtwo3hree. Similarly, ILovedoubleEggSandwich can be written as Ilove2ble33gsandwich.

Passwords should also include special characters wherever you wish to add. This makes it more secure and hard to crack.

Bonus Tip: Use 2 Factor authentication

This tip is not about creating a strong password but to keep your password secure. Creating a strong password is a very effective way to keep your account safe from a data breach. 2-factor authentication is an additional security layer that forces the user to enter a unique code even after signing in using his password.

These codes are either provided by the website as “backup codes” or using an authenticator app, like Google Authenticator, which is secure and reliable. Almost every site offers the feature to enable 2FA, making it difficult for the hacker to crack the password and get into your personal space.

Wrapping Up

The necessity of using strong passwords was vital before and will stay critical as we enter our details on various websites, which can sometimes be compromised in a data breach.

Even tech giants like Facebook fail to secure our passwords most of the time. Therefore, it is advised to follow the tips mentioned above while creating a strong password and use a secure layer like 2FA to stay safe from intruders.