Written by Syan Bateman

In the previous part of our Password Protection series, we talked about the common ways that hackers get access to your account through your password. This week, we’ll look at how to protect yourself against those attacks.

Creating a Good Password

Hackers often use dictionary attacks, so the first step in protecting yourself against these attacks is to create a ‘secure’ password. This means at least eight characters long, with a mix of numbers and letters. Don’t use common phrases or numbers patterns, or personal information such as your date of birth as this type of information can now be easily found online.

One method to create a strong password is to take your favourite line from a memorable song and take the first letter of each word. Then, capitalise the letters alternatively, and replace some letters with numbers and symbols.

For example, ‘Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down’ becomes nggyunglyd, which can then become NgGyUnGlYd, then N9GyUnG1Yd. 

Also, don’t reuse your passwords across too many platforms, because if any one of those platforms get hacked, the hacker can learn your password. So, any account you have registered with the same password can now be in accessed by the hacker as well.

Creating Good Security Questions

For security questions, use the more complicated answer that is unlikely to be posted anywhere. It’s also recommended to use a different form of Multi-Factor Authentication, something we’ll be looking at in more detail in the fourth and final part of this series. 

Keeping track of it all

It is not possible to create a new and strong password for every one of your accounts and store them in your memory. So, we need more reliable approaches to keep track of all of our passwords.

One way is to use a password manager, which will be explored in detail in the next part of this series. Alternatively, you could write hints to your passwords and store them away from your computer (e.g. google Rick Astley).

If you want more information on how to make a good password, or want an evaluation of your current cyber security, email us at info@bivika.com.