Tips and Tricks for Passwords

Passwords are the first line of defense for securing yourself online. Read on for the best tips & tricks I have for making your passwords safe and secure!

Password Strength 💪

If you’ve ever signed up for an account on a website, you’re probably familiar with these “rules” when creating a password:

• Your password must be at least 8 characters in length

• Your password must contain at least one number

• Your password must contain at least one symbol

• Your password must include the name of your first pet... spelled backwards.

Ok, the last one was a joke - but you get the point. Requirements for passwords get increasingly more advanced as time goes on. But it’s for a good reason! Cybercriminals have sophisticated tools at their disposal, and one of the best defenses against them is to have a strong password.

I vividly remember creating my first password in elementary school. It was for a Nickelodeon Games account, on the family computer connected to our Dial Up modem. The password I used was “first” - after all, it was my first password. Not a very strong password by today’s standards. This tool from security.org kindly informs me that this particular password would be cracked “instantly” by modern hacking software

I highly suggest giving this tool a try! In addition to letting you know how strong the password is, it will also list reasons if it’s not considered a strong password. Here’s what it listed for my embarrassing password:

• Common Password: In the top 2860 most used passwords

• Length: Very short

• Possibly a word

• Character Variety: Just Letters

Needless to say, any modern website that cares about security at all wouldn’t allow a password like this. But times were much different back then! In case you were worried, just know that I’ve upped my password game a little bit since then. Here’s how one of my current passwords measures up to the competition:

Reusing Passwords 🔒

Unfortunately, I have some bad news: having a strong password doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s safe. Sometimes, hackers will gain access to a website’s database, and sell or leak the emails/passwords of users. I won’t get into the technical details about how websites are supposed to safely store passwords, but just know that not all websites follow the best practices. If your email/password combination is leaked, other websites using that same email and password are now vulnerable. For this reason, it’s important to not reuse passwords too often (or not at all, optimally).

I highly recommend going to the service HaveIBeenPwned and entering your email address. It will let you know of any data breaches that you may unknowingly have been involved in. Data breaches are actually a lot more common than people think. For example, my old email from childhood was involved in 23 data breaches:

If your email was involved in data breaches, don’t be too alarmed - the best thing you can do is change your password on any of the sites that show up (and any other websites where you use that same password)

If you do tend to reuse passwords, I have one piece of advice: make your email password strong and unique. Email is a common method used to verify identity and reset passwords. Because of this, if someone has access to your email, they effectively gain access to any services that use that email. It’s critical to ensure that your email password is the most secure.

Password Management 📒

So you (hopefully) have a bunch of strong and unique passwords. This can be a lot to remember! Managing all of these passwords isn’t an easy task. Some prefer memory, others like to write them down. In my opinion, the best tool at your disposal is a password manager, such as LastPass. It can be easily installed as a browser extension. The vault uses a “master password” to protect the rest. It will automatically save passwords, and fill them in for you on websites! It also alerts you to data breaches and has other features that keep your account secure.

If you do decide to use a password manager, I’ll give the same advice as I did for email: make sure the password is unique, and strong. If someone gains access to your password manager, they have a one-way ticket to every password that’s in your vault - no good!

Conclusion

Strong, unique passwords are crucial to solidifying your online safety. I hope that this information was insightful, and encourages you to treat your passwords a little more carefully. Good luck, and stay safe!

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