It’s More Crucial Than You Thought: Password Security Tips

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Passwords have become infamous these days because instead of securing a phone from any other hacker, it’s now securing it against spouses and partners in most cases. This has made some people hate passwords. Constant social media updates have also made some of us trivialise passwords as they tend to be hard work when you want to access apps on your device.

Device manufactures I’m sure had us in mind when they introduced fingerprint password because it then means you unlock your device in a whim. As annoying as it is to punch a number, draw a pattern or a combination of numbers and words whenever you want to access your device after it goes into lock mode, it’s imperative that you have a secure password for your device for these reasons

  1. They restrict unauthorised access to your device
  2. You protect yourself from identity theft
  3. You protect yourself from fraud (imagine a hacker guessing your Ecocash password and getting it correct )

What are the Qualities of a good or strong password?

A good strong password usually has all of the following

  • A capital letter
  • A small letter
  • A number
  • A symbol like @#$%^&
  • A minimum of 8 characters

Hackers have popularly gained access to people’s devices by guessing their passwords. If your password is strong, it makes it harder for a guesser to deduce it whole.

Tips On Setting up Passwords and Pin Codes

Human life is full of complex dynamics. I may sign up at a site today and never use it till 4 months later. Most of the time I will have forgotten the password. This is one of the questions I was asked when I was giving a password tutorial to my friends one day. Yes, we do forget our passwords but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t set them up or risk using a weak one. In order for you to not forget your password here are a few tips that can help.

1. Set up an easy but complex password.

Kinda oxymoronic for me to say easy and complex at the same time right? Well, you can really do that. Easy for you to remember but complex for the hacker to guess. This means if your password is your middle name Ronica you can just change it into R0n_c@11. You will always remember your second name and your birth date as your password and it will quickly dawn to you how initially you spelt it.

2. Don’t make it too complicated that you have to write it down somewhere.

This will frustrate you if you can’t find where you saved it. It may also be found by those unauthorised persons we don’t want to access our devices. Yes, super mega strong passwords are extremely good. Im@j3n1IfT-H15w@sY09@ssw0Rd ( imajeniifthiswasyourpasiwedhi) now remembering this sequence may actually be difficult and you may resort to keeping it in your bible, songbook or diary or even on your My Notes app on your phone in case you need it. If you give someone access to where you have written it, you have just given them access to your device.

3. Avoid using common and obvious words

If your password is P@55w0rD etc it may be difficult to guess but if someone tries to hack you and just start doing some permutations for your password, Password, is the first letter they will start with and a true genius will need a few hours to do combinations and permutations of password till they get it. Avoid using your name or surname as a password because there can only be a limited number of combinations for a guesser to crack.

4. Get a password manager.

Everything we have talked about works only for someone who has a few login details to manage. My friend ED (note that ED) has 52 sites that he at one point or another has to check. A genius may be able to remember all those usernames let’s just hypothetically say so. However, even if you do, you need a very strong password for each site or app.

Technology has come to our rescue on this note. These days password managers are now available that can keep all your strong passwords in a vault that you can retrieve whenever you want to use them. Passwords managers like LastPass (our favourite), Dashlane, 1Password, Keeper will keep your complex passwords for different logins secure. The all do require that you have one complex master password that you remember then all other passwords will be kept in a vault for you to retrieve for specific sites or app.

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