One of the most critical parts of security used to be the password, and while it has fallen out of favor in recent years due to how easily they can be cracked, a good password can still go a long way toward keeping your accounts safe. Let’s go over some of the best practices associated with passwords and how you can use them to your advantage.

Make Your Passwords Complex

One of the biggest things you can do to secure your passwords is to make sure they are complex enough that they cannot be guessed. To this end, you can make them more complex by using a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. Furthermore, your passwords should be lengthy, as longer passwords are more difficult to guess by virtue of having more characters that need to be guessed correctly.

Consider Passphrases, Not Passwords

But how do you make a password difficult to guess, yet easy to remember? The key might be in passphrases. Passphrases might be strings of words turned into a password with the occasional capitalization or special character thrown into the mix. For example, instead of using your pet’s name, you might use a phrase to describe your pet (Think “fluffythedog” versus “fluffyisorangeandbarksalot”).

Don’t Use the Same Password Twice

Imagine using the same password for each of your accounts. It might be easy to remember, but what happens when that password is stolen by a hacker? They could theoretically use it against all of your accounts, which is incredibly problematic. We recommend using different passwords for each of your different accounts to minimize the odds of one password becoming compromised and affecting the others.

Utilize Additional Solutions to Augment Security

Passwords alone are often not enough to keep your accounts secure, especially with more sophisticated hacking tools being able to crack passwords with relative ease. It’s harder for a hacker to break into an account secured with multi-factor authentication, be they biometrics or secondary device authentication tools, and you can use password managers to make adhering to password best practices much easier.

Compudata knows that passwords and security can be difficult to manage, so why not make things a little easier for yourself by contacting us? We can provide a comprehensive network audit and help you implement solutions to make password management and security easier. To learn more, reach out to us at 1-855-405-8889.