Your password is 1234, or maybe it consists of your name and date of birth? Do you have one universal password for many of your accounts? If you create your security this way, you must know that your accounts are not well protected. According to research, in 2021 the most frequently used passwords by Poles included:
- 123456
- qwerty
- zaq123wsx
- 123456789
- 12345
40% of the 150 most popular passwords created by Poles contain names. Certainly, the examples given above are not good slogans. How to create them to ensure that our accounts are well protected?
Online password generator – will it create a good password?
The online password generator is a tool that will allow us to easily and quickly create a safe password that meets security requirements. A good password generator offers the ability to define the length of the password and what characters it should be composed of. It is worth using trusted tools created by well-known companies for such an important task as creating a password. Such tools are offered by antivirus manufacturers, e.g. ESET, Bitdefender and Avast. However, even a password created using a generator is worth modifying slightly and changing at least one or two characters. In this way, we will minimize the chance that our password will be revealed after the generator's internal algorithm is leaked, or it turns out that the passwords created were stored in some way. Modification can be done by replacing some characters or adding new ones. It is not recommended to shorten the password because it reduces its complexity.
How to create a secure password with an online password generator?
To create a strong password, we should not use our names, dates of birth or easy-to-guess facts. How to create a difficult password that will secure our account?
- The password should be at least 12 characters long,
- It should be a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters,
- Shouldn't be a word that we can find in a dictionary,
- It should not be the same password used on another account.
What is a special character in a password?
A special character in a password is a symbol that is neither a number nor a letter. These include: symbols such as ~`!@#$%^&*()_-+={}[];:'”\|/?.><,\|. The special character has an even greater impact on the strength of our password. Using special characters in a long password will make your password strong and make it much more difficult for hackers to crack it.
What affects the strength of a password?
Creating passwords in accordance with the rules provided earlier will allow us to create a strong password that will protect our account against unexpected attacks.
We can always check the strength of the password on the bar that appears on almost all websites when creating an account. It indicates whether our password is weak, strong or strong. Thanks to this, we know whether we need to include more special characters in the password. However, the machine on the website may not check whether part of our password appears in the dictionary, so it is worth monitoring it yourself and using only non-dictionary phrases in your passwords. It is also worth following the rules that will make our accounts safe:
- Don't share your passwords with anyone;
- Do not send passwords with logins in emails or via social media;
- Use different strong passwords for each website, especially those that contain sensitive data and their theft may result in serious consequences - social media, e-mail, online banking, patient account, trusted profile;
Don't write down passwords in calendars or notebooks that you carry with you. If stolen, all your accounts are vulnerable. If you want to store your passwords securely, use a password manager, e.g. KeePass.
How to properly protect your user account against takeover?
One of the methods of additional security of our account is two-step verification, also known as multi-factor authentication or MFA. Even if the hacker manages to guess our secure password, the next verification step will not allow him to access the account. What is two-step verification? After creating a strong password, we provide our phone number or download a special application, e.g. Google Authenticator. Each time you log in on a new device, the website will require you to enter a special code that will come in an SMS message or appear in the application. In this way, we will additionally protect our accounts against takeover and unauthorized use.
Worth seeing:
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