Tips to choose passwords that keep Hackers Away
1. Forget the dictionary
If your password can be found in a dictionary, you
might as well not have one. The worst passwords are dictionary words or a small
number of insertions or changes to words that are in the dictionary. Hackers
will often test passwords from a dictionary or aggregated from breaches. If
your password is not in that set, hackers will typically move on.
2. Never use the same password twice
People tend to use the same password across
multiple sites, a fact hackers regularly exploit. While cracking into someone's
professional profile on LinkedIn might not have dire consequences, hackers will
use that password to crack into, say, someone's e-mail, bank, or brokerage
account where more valuable financial and personal data is stored.
3. Come up with a passphrase
The longer your password, the longer it will take
to crack. A password should ideally be 14 characters or more in length if you
want to make it uncrackable by an attacker in less than 24 hours. Because
longer passwords tend to be harder to remember, consider a passphrase, such as
a favorite movie quote, song lyric, or poem, and string together only the first
one or two letters of each word in the sentence.
4. Just jam on your keyboard
For sensitive accounts, instead of a passphrase, you can randomly jam
on keyboard, intermittently hitting the
Shift and Alt keys, and copy the result into a text file which he stores on an
encrypted, password-protected USB drive.
5. Store your passwords securely
Do not store your passwords in your in-box or on
your desktop. If malware infects your computer, you're toast. Keeps password
hints, not the actual passwords, on a scrap of paper in your wallet.
6. A password manager
Password-protection software lets you store all
your usernames and passwords in one place. Some programs will even create
strong passwords for you and automatically log you in to sites as long as you
provide one master password. LastPass, SplashData and AgileBits offer password
management software for Windows, Macs and mobile devices.
7. Ignore security questions
There is a limited set of answers to questions
like "What is your favorite color?" and most answers to questions
like "What middle school did you attend?" can be found on the
Internet. Hackers use that information to reset your password and take control
of your account. Earlier this year, a hacker claimed he was able to crack into
Mitt Romney's Hotmail and Dropbox accounts using the name of his favorite pet.
A better approach would be to enter a password hint that has nothing to do with
the question itself. For example, if the security question asks for the name of
the hospital in which you were born, your answer might be: "Your favorite
song lyric."
8. Use different browsers
Use different Web browsers for different
activities. "Pick one browser for 'promiscuous' browsing: online forums,
news sites, blogs -- anything you don't consider important. As for which
browser to use for which activities, a study last year by Accuvant Labs of Web
browsers -- including Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Microsoft Internet
Explorer -- found that Chrome was the least susceptible to attacks.
9. Share cautiously
Don’t register for online accounts using your real
e-mail address. In this situation you can use "throwaway" e-mail
addresses, like those offered by 10minutemail.com. Users register and confirm
an online account, which self-destructs 10 minutes later.
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