A recent study has shown that thousands to hundreds of thousands of accounts are made daily on the Internet by people from all around the world. As you may know, creating an account usually means providing information such as a username, an email and choosing a password in order to not give other people access to your account.
With this in mind, many people pick passwords that aren’t strong or which are easy to guess. Here are a couple of tips that can be used by anyone in order to pick a strong password that hackers will not guess.
1. Pick something that you’ll remember
We all know how frustrating it is when we have an account on a certain website and we forget the password to it. Going through the process needed in order to reset a password is very lengthy and uncomfortable for anyone who has forgotten a password.
With this in mind, your password can be related to:
- An animal
- Your house
- Your personal information
- Something that you really like
However, choosing your birthdate as a password is simply a bad idea, as it can be easily guessed by anyone trying to log into your account.
2. Make passwords stronger
Once you have thought about a word or phrase that you can easily remember, it is time for you to alter it in order to make it harder to guess. In order to so, you can:
- Change its spelling
- Write it with capital letters somewhere in the word
- Make it have a different meaning
- Add other characters to it
This will not only add a unique twist to your password, but it will also make guessing it much harder. However, following the tips that have been mentioned until now cannot make sure that your password will be secure from all the points of view, as you should do a few more things as well.
3. Add numbers or special characters
A strong password usually has numbers in it, but also special characters which can include (£,%,&,*,@, etc). By adding both numbers and unique characters in your password, not only will it be stronger, but chances are that hackers will never get to figure it out. With this in mind, you can make sure to keep your online accounts secure.
4. Choose different passwords for different accounts
This represents a very important tip to keep in mind, as in the unfortunate case that you have your password stolen or that somebody else guesses it, they will not instantly gain access to other accounts that you own. With this in mind, make sure to choose different passwords for different accounts. Not only should the main word or phrase be different, but the characters and numbers used in the password should also be different.
5. Other tips to remember
A strong password can also be chosen and kept secure by following some of these other tips:
- Constantly scan your computer, phone or tablet for viruses and key loggers. These harmful programs can do what is needed in order to read your password whenever you’re typing it.
- Have good security questions in the case that somebody tries to reset your password. By picking only questions and answers that you know the answer to, chances are that hackers won’t be able to gain access to your account.
- Don’t choose passwords which have been deemed easy. Some must not’s can include: password, iloveyou, dog123, your birthdate and more.
- Make sure that your password is of more than 6-9 characters long.
By following these tips, chances are that it will be close to impossible for anyone to guess your password and log into account. However, keep in mind that the wisest choice of a password can only be made by you together with the fact that passwords should be changed as time goes by in order to avoid any unpleasant events.
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