Month: August 2018

The password. 

Once upon it time it was a word used to gain entry into a place. In modern times the password is an everyday essential. Take a moment to think how many applications, websites and portals that you use a password for. From online banking through to email and online grocery shopping – passwords are everywhere.

It is vital that your password is complex and secure. Cybercrime is unfortunately a booming business and to defend yourself and your business it is important to adopt security measures such as firewall, malware protection, mutli-factor authentication to name a few. Having a strong password is something that is quite easy to do yet often overlooked.

There are different schools of thought behind picking a password, the number of characters, the use of special characters and numbers etc. It must be memorable to the user to ensure they don’t forget it on a daily basis but the idea is to make it hard for a hacker to guess.

Here’s some tips:

1. Do not use personal information. We recommend you don’t include any words related to your name, family members or pets. Don’t include numbers from your address, birthdate or phone number.
2. Passwords should be either a word or a sentence that do not relate to yourself. A password cracking tool will find that type of password difficult to hack.
   • Ex1: Use a combination of words unrelated to yourself along with a special character and numbers (example: Mountaintreeroad_742
   • Ex2: Use a sentence that you can easily remember along with a special character and numbers.
3. By combining uppercase letters with lowercase letters, numbers and special characters such as “$” or “£” you are increasing the complexity of your password.
4. Create longer passwords. Probability dictates that longer passwords are harder to crack.
5. Modify easy to remember phrases. Think of a phrase then use the first letter for each word, substituting numbers for some of the letters.
6. Use different passwords on different accounts.
7. When using your laptop or mobile device in a Wi-Fi hotspot or over a public network avoid actions that require a username or password (aka online banking or shopping).

For assistance with your password policy or to hear more about our cyber security solutions get in touch below.

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