Ways of Managing Passwords
Best Ways of Managing Passwords for Preventing Identity Theft. In today’s connected world, online security is of paramount importance. Virtually everything you do from shopping to banking, storing medical records, appearing for exams, sending emails, logging into your social media accounts, or accessing your company’s database, the only thing that keeps your data secure is your password.
Even though there are tons of advice regarding best password and security management practices. You need to be careful as much of it is outdated and therefore, useless. Some effective password management tips that will help you to protect your confidential information:
Create Passphrases Not Password
Generally, hackers tend to access accounts whose passwords they can easily crack. This is the reason why creating strong passwords is a big deterrent for hackers. As they are not inclined to put so much effort into hacking one single individual’s account.
Typically, passwords with over eight characters in length and containing lowercase and uppercase letters, special characters, and numbers are safe. The longer and more random the password is the more difficult it is to hack.
See Also: Cyber Security Tips
Encrypt Your Passwords
The process of password encryption provides an additional layer of protection against identity theft and passwords cannot be used by hackers even if they get access to them. Considering end-to-end non-reversible encryption practices are the best way of protecting passwords during their transit over the network. There are quite a few free online password encryption services available online. Click here to find out what is identity guard.
Two-Factor Authentication – Managing Passwords
Two-factor authentication has very quickly become a standard for organizational resource access management. According to https://www.huffingtonpost.in, the process requires users to confirm their identity by feeding in a one-time code sent to their mobile phones after they have used their username and password to log in. The concept is that the extra authentication makes sheer guesswork or even password cracking insufficient to gain account access.
See Also: IoT Security
Avoid Using Dictionary Words
It is most natural for users to use words that are found in dictionaries to set up their passwords. This is because they are not habituated to think in terms of random unstructured meaningless words or phrases. Unfortunately, the passwords using dictionary words can be cracked by hackers using powerful automated programs. That searches through databases of dictionary words to crack the password.
Avoid Changing Passwords Periodically
For years now, users have been advised to change their passwords regularly in a bid to stay ahead of hackers and unintentional security breaches. However, more recent thought on this is that users should desist from doing so unless their accounts are specifically under threat.
This is because most users tend to repeat passwords used earlier or find creative ways of bypassing strategies to prevent such re-use. Another drawback of frequent password changes is that since they cannot be memorized easily. Users tend to write them down, which defeats the entire purpose of creating passwords.
Conclusion
Regardless of how much effort you have put in to implement a robust password strategy, you need to stay vigilant because there are multiple ways hackers can try to get access to your passwords.
Using anti-malware programs to detect and eliminate spyware as well as password managers that make it unnecessary to remember multiple passwords are good techniques to keep your data safe.