The don’ts of password creation

1. Don’t use your personal information or that of your relatives in creating passwords.

2. Don’t save passwords on your computer or digital devices.

3. Don’t use dictionary words only as your password.

4. Don’t use the same password on all social media accounts

Don’t use your personal information or that of your relatives in creating passwords.

Example: names, date of births, graduation dates etc.

The first thing most hackers do when they want to hack a victim is reconnaissance. This is the process of gathering information about the victim. Examples of such information could be their names, date of births, birth place, etc. Usually they try to access the victim’s accounts with that information. 

Don’t save passwords on your computer or digital devices.

One of the easiest things hackers do is to hack into the victims computers and mobile devices remotely. They then try to harvest information such as passwords and credit card information. 

Don’t use dictionary words as your password. 

Most hackers have a “wordlist” that contains trillions of passwords, they use this along with the victim’s email to bruteforce on sites such as facebook, yahoo and gmail. If your password is a straight dictionary word such as “terrence”, I bet it’ll take the computer less than a few seconds to crack it. 

Don’t use the same password on all social media accounts

About 60% of people who have subscribed to at least two of the biggest social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc,  fall victim to this mistake. In order for them to have easy accessibility, they use the same password for all their accounts. If by any reason, a hacker attacks your facebook account, he uses the same information to try to access other social media accounts. You stand the tragedy of losing all your accounts if you used the same password for all of them.

Are there unbreakable passwords?

The strength of passwords evolve with time, therefore what used to be a strong password could easily be cracked with time. The fact however, is that, the more complicated the password looks, the more difficult it is to break.

I therefore define a strong password as one that is not less than 8 characters, and is made up of alpha-numeric and special characters, with a mixture of capital and small letters mixed with numbers.

Examples are as follows. #[email protected]$, [email protected], (Had)@(Easy)

How to choose a super strong password.

1. Choose a word you are likely to remember. Eg. “Wink”. Notice that I started with a Capital letter 

2. Wrap the word in open and closing brackets or curly bracket. I.e (Wink) or {Wink} or even [Wink]

3. Add an ampersand followed by a number you are likely to remember. Obviously not your date of birth. (Wink)@50

4. Lastly, you are done writing your password, so like you do when you end a sentence, add full stop. The whole password becomes (Wink)@50.

This can become a formula for your passwords, you may decide to change the word inside the bracket to create passwords for your other social media accounts, for easy remembrance. 

Change your password more frequently.

One important thing you need to note is that, you need to change your password more frequently. I personally tie changing my passwords to changing my toothbrush. Therefore, anytime I change my toothbrush, it reminds me that I need to change my passwords.

If this blog has helped you, please share it with others for them to have a strong password too.