You can say that passwords are the first line of defense in our digital lives as they help keep our vital information safe from cybercriminals. While we’re constantly experiencing technological advancements, it’s also easier for hackers to break into your personal or enterprise accounts. For this reason, it’s never been more important to keep your passwords protected. When you’re using dozens of passwords across multiple websites, it feels like there’s always a new account to set up or manage every now and then. One day we might live in a world where we don’t need passwords to keep data safe, but today, we have to learn how to keep them secure, and the best way to do that is using fully encrypted password managers.
Millions and millions of passwords get compromised due to data breaches. In a 2020 report that analyzed nearly 4,000 confirmed breaches, it was found that 52% of them were a result of hacking. Mastering the art of password management becomes even more important as we keep on working remotely or in a hybrid work environment. At the same time, most of our shopping and financial transactions also happen online and this increases the chances of your password getting into the wrong hands.
So why do we keep facing challenges regarding password management? Firstly, people use the same password time and time again and occasionally share them with others. Around half of all passwords are reused. Using the same passwords again and again is a critical problem because a password data breach on one site can compromise security on all the sites that have the same password. Many individuals also tend to use passwords that aren’t strong enough or have already been compromised in data breaches.
In this article, we will talk about some of the top dos and don’ts of password management to ensure your passwords are bulletproof and how you can limit damage from a potential data breach.
Do Create Long Passwords
The domain of hacking has advanced, and the amount of time it takes to figure out credentials has dramatically decreased over the past few years. A strong password needs to be at least 12 to 15 characters long. The longer the password, the more complicated it becomes to crack.
Do Use Special Characters
Adding special characters to your password further strengthens it. You should also use both upper and lower case letters along with special characters (! @, and?). However, you should avoid the urge to replace 2 with @ as it’s easy to fathom sometimes.
Do Consider 2-Factor Authentication
2-factor or multifactor authentication adds an extra level of security for an individual or company’s sensitive data, so there are multiple instead of one key code. 2FA helps protect both a user’s credentials and its resources. For instance, when you want to send credit from your bank account to another account, your bank might send you two sets of passwords, one via email and another via SMS, to verify it’s you who is making the transaction.
Do Use a Password Manager
A password manager is arguably the best way to keep all of your passwords and business accounts protected. Strong passwords are usually longer than 8 characters containing a variety of unique letters, numbers, and symbols that are extremely hard to crack. Using a password manager will take the load off your mind freeing up your mental strength to productive things instead of remembering a lost list of passwords.
When using a password manager, you only need to remember one password for the password manager. Then, when you need to login to a website or any other application, instead of typing in a key into that site or app, the password manager automatically fills the required login info. This way, you don’t have to go into the hassle of thinking about your email address, username, and passcode you need to use to access the website or the software you’re about to use.
Whether you’re signing up for the first time, your password manager will generate a secure, unique, and random passcode. You can also configure it to autofill information such as your credentials into a web form or application for increased ease of use and convenience. When you use a password manager, it automatically incorporates all the essential elements of creating strong passwords, including encryption, 2-factor authentication, a mixture of letters, numbers and special characters, longer characters (from 12 to 15), and more.
The best part of using a password manager is that you no longer have to remember or reuse any of your passwords as it can spontaneously create and store hundreds of passwords that you can access from anywhere, anytime.
Don’t Reuse the Same Password
Many applications will require you to reset your password after a specific time period for your own security. While resetting the password, don’t be tempted to reuse an old password you created and used before to avoid getting hacked in the future. Instead, it’s best to come up with new passwords from scratch and reset them every two months or even earlier than that.
Don’t Use Common Dictionary Words or Personal Interests
In the past, if you were to use common dictionary words for creating a new password, then it would be okay. However, using words like “shadow”, “princess”, “love”, “sunshine”, etc. is not recommended these days as they just aren’t good enough. Also, everyone talks about their favorite things, hobbies, and interests on social media, which the hackers can keep an eye on and put one of those key phrases while attempting to crack open one’s passcode.
Make sure you aren’t using any of such words while creating your next password to avoid your sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. One thing you should do though is to mix up some capital letters and special characters in between such words if you want to avoid the hassle of forming a long password with random characters.
Don’t share your Password with Others
Often it’s a company policy to share login information for business purposes. However, sharing an account’s (whether individual or business) sign-in information with other users is not recommended. Therefore, it’s best to only share the login credentials with individuals having complete authorization or someone you trust to access sensitive data or programs.
Conclusion
Although you may have heard about some of these tips and tricks before, utilizing compromised passwords can still lead to significant data loss. Most of the do’s and don’ts of passwords can be quite tedious and often hard to follow. That’s where a password manager comes into play. This specialized software incorporates all the vital aspects of password management, which we discussed here, and can help protect any company’s data privacy and safety.
