It’s important that you choose secure passwords to access your online accounts. Hackers use lists of common passwords to access accounts, so it’s critical that you use a strong, unique password.

  • Use a mixture of letters, numbers and characters, like the characters above the numbers on many keyboards such as %, *,$, £ and !. Including in your password punctuation, symbols and other non-standard characters helps to increase the strength of your password.
  • Avoid names, birthdays and dictionary words, as these are easy to guess and hack.
  • The longer the password is, the stronger it usually is, but the harder it is to recall. Choose a password you can remember so that you don’t have to write it down.
  • It can be difficult to create a strong password and remember it easily. Here are a few techniques to help:

Use a sentence as your password

Passwords are limited to 50 characters, but you can use a short sentence to create a password that’s difficult to crack.

Include numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters in your passwords, so instead of “theanswerismars” try “Th3Answer1sM4rs*”

Make the password personal to you

Your password is something that only you should know and not something that someone else could easily find out. For example, the name of your dog or your favorite movie are things that others might know, especially since, with the advent of social networking, a lot of personal information is available about you.

Try looking outside and describing something you see (“The River Flowing!” or “A Yellow car”), and then apply our recommendations:
“Th3Riv3rFl0wing*” or “4Y3lloWcar.$”

Use a unique password for each site

Many of us have a large number of websites and accounts that we need to remember our username and password for, but not all sites are created equal. Not all sites care passionately about and invest heavily in your security, So use a password that is unique to each website you use to prevent any compromise of those other sites from affecting any other account.

It’s common practice for attackers to verify stolen accounts from other websites against high-value accounts like Skype, mail providers and social networks to see if they can get access.

Change your password regularly

Even if you have a strong password, you should change it regularly.

And if you ever suspect your password has been compromised, you should change it immediately.

If another website or service where you use the same or a similar password is compromised, change your password as soon as possible on other accounts to protect your account.
Above all enroll for the Certified Secure Computer User course to learn how to protect your online information and assets. Currently this Course is offered by the Institute of Forensics and ICT Security, you may apply for it here.

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