Online Password Tips!

When protecting your personal information online, your password is the gatekeeper to avoiding others obtaining that information. Therefore, it is essential to have a strong password that is difficult to decipher. You can do many things to protect the strength of your password. Below are a few tips.

• Make your password long – Hackers will try many ways to get into your account. They target you and manually type in letters, numbers, and symbols to guess your password. The longer and more complex your password is, the longer this process takes. Hackers can crack a password in less than a second with a short three-character password.
• Include different characters – Changing certain characters of your password can help stop hackers from cracking the code—for example, substitute @ for A or 0 for O. Considering capitalizing letters in your password.
• Keep your password under wraps – One easy way to protect yourself is not to give your password to anyone else. Do not type your password into your device if you are within plain sight of someone else who can see you typing. If you have password hints or a list stored on your computer, name it random, so it is not a dead giveaway.
• Change your passwords regularly – The more sensitive your information is, the more often you should change your password. Hackers will keep trying to crack your password no matter how strong you make them. Changing your password often will help prevent hackers from gaining access.

You can view more tips and advice in this Mental Floss article.

If you think one of your accounts has been hacked, change your password and immediately report it to the corresponding website.

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