With all the news and hype about recent hacker attacks these days I decided to share some quick tips about online passwords.  I hope you find it useful.  At the beginning of the year, CNN put out an article entitled “123456 Tops List of Worst Passwords,” in which it discusses the sad state of our password creativity (or lack thereof).  It references a list compiled by the security company Splashdata of the top 25 worst passwords to use. Some of the passwords were the following:

123456
Password
Monkey

If your password is as simple as “123456”, then you are just asking for it. What were people thinking when they came up with that one? “Let’s see, the password has to be a minimum of 6 characters…” The password “password” is no better and is on par with the height of laziness just like the previous password. And, what is the fascination with monkeys and why should it even be a password?

Ok, I’ll try to contain myself. Anyway, you can read the articles mentioned in the links above to learn how to setup good passwords, but if you want the cliff notes version of these Password Best Practices, here’s my Top 5 recommendations.

1. Use a combination of upper case, lower case, numbers and symbols.
2. Change your passwords at least every 3 months.
3. Don’t use the same password for all your websites.
4. Use long passwords, preferably 8 characters or more.
5. Don’t share your password with anyone.

This may sound excessive, but this “hassle” is nothing compared to the hassle of having your online identity stolen or your Bank Accounts, Credit Cards, or other personal information hacked. Please, Please be diligent in keeping your information as secure as possible.

There are a lot more issues regarding security that we can discuss and over the next few weeks, I’ll be addressing those. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding your security needs.

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