In today's online world passwords are the first line of defense protecting our accounts and personal information. Here are some tips to help keep you protected.
1. We recommend creating a password containing 8 or more characters.
Data Sources from the website "howsecureismypassword.com" shows that a password containing only lowercase letters that is 7characters long can take a hacker as little as .29 milliseconds to hack with the proper password guessing software. This time goes up to 5 hours if the password is 8 characters and 5 days for a 9-character password. When creating a password, the length of it has a direct correlation with the security of it.
2. Buld a longer password.
A 12-character long password consisting of just l lowercase characters can potentially be hacked in as quick as 3 weeks by a good hacker. By mixing in uppercase letters, the time goes to 300 years. Mix in some numbers, it could take upwards of 2 thousand years to figure it out.
3. Mix it up
When creating a password try to use as many different characters as possible. Also, try to use the first letter of a phrase you can easily remember using both uppercase and lowercase letters. Using this method skyrockets hackers to 34 thousand years of password guessing.
4. Avoid using personal information in your passwords.
This type of information is the first thing hackers try when trying to guess passwords. Things like your name, birthday, hometown, etc. are good things to avoid putting in your passwords because this information may be available on public facing platforms like 3 Facebook or in Public Records searches.
