Want to Protect Yourself from Cybercrime? 4 Tips for Creating Strong Passwords
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You have secure and different usernames and passwords for each of the websites that you log into, right? No? That’s okay; you probably don’t even use the internet that frequently anyway. Oh, you do? If you are using the same credentials for your email or social media accounts as you are for, say, a bank account, you could be setting yourself up for trouble.
The average password is weak, easy to remember (and therefore easy to decipher) and repeated across multiple platforms. Passwords like your spouse’s or child’s name, the street where you live, your birthday or important anniversaries are easy to find online. Cybercriminals are evolving faster than the online security measures taken to defend against them. If you want to help protect your information online, it is up to you to develop strong and unique credentials for the sites that you log into.
The following are four tips for developing and remembering unique logins and passwords.
1. For website passwords, consider using the first four or five letters of the website at the beginning of your password. For example:
| Website | Password |
| www.facebook.com | Faceb or faCeb |
| www.paypal.com | Paypa or pAypa |
2. For additional security, add a symbol and a number to the first few letters of the website. For example:
| Website | Password |
| www.facebook.com | Faceb@3 or faCeb3$ |
| www.paypal.com | Paypa#5 or pAypab&9 |
3. Pick a phrase you will easily remember, but that isn’t unique to you or your family. For example:
| Passphrase | Password Abbreviation |
| “I spend all day on Facebook” | isadof |
| “Spending money online is fun” | smoif |
4. Add the passphrase you just created to the first letters of the website, including the symbols and numbers:
| Website | Password |
| www.facebook.com | Faceb@3isadof or faCeb3$isadof |
| www.paypal.com | Paypa#5smoif or pAypab&9smoif |
The four tips above are suggestions for creating passwords that are difficult to decode and easy to remember. In general, consider creating passwords that are at least eight characters long and contain:
- At least one letter
- At least one capital and one lowercase letter
- At least one number or punctuation mark
- At least one symbol
With a little bit of common sense and a practice in place for creating strong and unique passwords, you can help protect your information from the prying eyes of cybercriminals.
Contact me or another member of our risk advisory services team to learn more about assessing your information security risks and protecting yourself and your business from data threats.
Richard Salinas is a Management Chief Operations Officer at Kaufman Rossin, one of the Top 100 CPA and advisory firms in the U.S.
