Passwords: Is yours S+R0ng En0uGH?

Would you leave your home and post on social media where your house key was located? If the answer is no, then make sure you’re not doing the same with your virtual security.

Passwords are just like your house key and are an important aspect of keeping your data and personal life protected. Hackers, just like home burglars and intruders, are counting on you to make your password easy to find by using short passwords to protect your sites. They also study your social media accounts to see if they can determine a common theme or something important to you that may be used as a password. To help avoid these pitfalls, here’s some do’s and don’ts that can help you with creating a strong password to protect your data online:

Don’ts

• Never use a pet’s name only as a password.

• Do not include personal information such as your name, phone number, birthday, etc.

• Don’t create passwords from just a single word in a dictionary. Many password cracking apps can generate these passwords in a matter of minutes.

• Avoid using the same password on multiple sites. Hackers have tools that allow them to try passwords against multiple sites.

• Never use passwords made up of adjacent characters or numbers such as abc, 321, zyx, etc. Even bunching these together is easily cracked by hackers.

Do’s

• Create a password with a minimum of 12 characters.

• Use a minimum of 3 of the 4 criteria:

  1. Contains upper case letters

  2. Contains lower case letters

  3. Contains at least one number (for example, 0-9)

  4. Contains at least one special character (!$%^&*/).

• Use the name of a favorite song, a song lyric, movie, phrase, etc. and change the letters and numbers to items in the list above.

  1. mY5orit3$hirt’sR3d (my favorite shirt is red)

  2. Th@10ngestY@rd (The Longest Yard)

• Use a password manager (Last Pass, KeePass) to help you keep up with passwords you create for different sites.

Following these recommended practices can help you keep your data secure.

Central Access is a locally-owned fiber based internet service provider serving communities in central Alabama. As a subsidiary of Central Alabama Electric Cooperative, our mission is to provide reliable, lightning-fast and affordable internet service to rural Alabamians. To find out if you’re eligible for service in our area, visit www.centralaccess.com and enter your address.