Avoid personal information like your nickname or initials, birthday, address or street name, or a child or pet’s name. Don’t use information that people who know you or look at your social media can guess. That’s a string of words that can be up to 100 characters long. Some sites allow users to create a passphrase. But a 12-character password with at least one uppercase and one lowercase letter, number, and a special character would take 34,000 years to crack. A computer can guess a password with eight letters immediately. Include at least one capital letter, one number, and one symbol. Or make an abbreviation from the words in a sentence (changing “the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog in the backyard” to “tqbfjotlditb,” for instance). To make it easy to remember, use a lyric from a song or poem (for example, “andtherocketsredglare”). While it can be easy to use similar passwords for multiple accounts, hackers might be able to get into your other online accounts if they access just one. But what exactly makes a strong password? Here are a few criteria. How to create a strong passwordĪ good password can make it more difficult for hackers to access your accounts. Change old passwords for seldom-used accounts and close the account if you don’t intend to use it again. You may have an account you haven’t used in a year, such as from an online retailer. Create new passwords when you’re no longer sharing an account with someone. There’s also no need for an ex to share a bank account or have mobile app access. If you no longer have contact with someone, there’s no need for them to remain on your Netflix or Amazon account. If you have quality antivirus software (like what’s included in McAfee Total Protection) and it detects malware, you’ll want to change your passwords from another device. Your personal information could be at risk if malware infects your computer. It can also be a good idea to look into a smart VPN like McAfee Secure VPN, which automatically turns on to protect your personal data and credit card information even if you need to use public Wi-Fi. If you need to use an unsecure network, change your password once you’re on a secure network. Generally, an unsecure network means your online activity is public. You used an unsecure networkĪs much as possible, try to avoid logging into your secure accounts on public Wi-Fi, such as at a library or cafe. If hackers get access to your password, they may try it on multiple websites to see what else they can steal. If you use that password for any other websites, you’ll definitely want to change your password to those accounts. If there’s a password breach at work or within a company you do business with, you’ll want to change the password for any affected accounts. This can help limit the amount of time a cybercriminal has access to your account. Are your Facebook friends getting a new friend request from you? Something’s not right, so you’ll want to change your password. Did everyone in your address book get a strange email that looks like it’s from you? Change your email password. If you think someone has hacked your account, it’s important to act fast and change your password. There are some situations where you’ll want to change your password immediately. Situations when you should immediately change your password This article explores those exact situations and covers some of the best password practices you can use to help safeguard these important combinations of letters and numbers. There may even be situations where you should change your password immediately, especially if a cybercriminal has access to your account. This means the best line of defense is frequent password changes.īut how often should you create new passwords? Cybersecurity experts recommend changing your password every three months. But that’s exactly what hackers are hoping for - in fact, it makes their job a lot easier. When it comes to passwords, most of us would love nothing more than to set it and forget it.
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