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How a password generator can help you create a strong password
Each day, our lives become more inseparable from the internet; we email instead of call, we stay in touch with social media, we shop online, bank online, etc. And each of our online accounts requires a password. We all know that choosing a strong password is important for internet security, but nonetheless many of us opt for weak passwords simply because they are easier to remember and keep track of. While it is inconvenient to create very strong passwords, the potential fallout from having your accounts hacked will be much more inconvenient. Don’t worry; after reading this article, you’ll be a pro when it comes to knowing whether a password is strong, and we’ll give you a handy secure password generator to take some of the guesswork out of creating a strong password.
Do a quick Google search for “password hacking software”, and you will be shocked (and maybe appalled) at how many people sell programs design to crack your passwords and hack your accounts. You’ll also find questions from people around the world asking, “what are the best ways to hack someone’s password?” These are the people you need to protect yourself against.
To give you an idea of how grave the problem is, consider this: about ¾ of Americans (73%) have been a victim of cyber crime, and some 90% of businesses were hacked in some way over the past year. One simply way to protect yourself against cyber crime is to make sure your accounts have strong, unique passwords. The PasswordsGenerator.com random password generator can help you create a strong password,
Here are the top cyber security factors to make a strong password and accessing your accounts:
1. Each password should be unique
This takes extra work on your part, for sure. But imagine what would happen if a hacker cracked just one of your passwords—a password that you use to access several different accounts. The hacker would now be free to sign in to any of the accounts using that password. Don’t make a hacker’s job any easier!
2. Longer is better
Depending on the hacking method used, a six-letter password, with no numbers or capital letters (“orange”, for example), may take up to 10 minutes to hack, or as little as 1 second if a fast attack hacking program is being used. By adding extra letters to our password (for example, “orangemarmelade”), it will now take months to hack, and adding numbers and special characters (“Orang3marme!ade”) will take centuries to crack, even using the most powerful hacking software. Put another way, changing “orange” to “oranges” will increase the amount of items a hacking program must search through 26 times, for 26 letters in the alphabet. But substituting a zero for the “o”, “0range” increases it 260 times (26 letters x 10 numbers), and “orange!” increases it up to 8,580 times! (26 letters x 10 numbers x up to 33 special characters).
3. No names, please
Don’t use your name, first, last or middle, as your password. The three passwords that a hacker will try first is, “password”, “123456” and different combinations of your name. Same goes for the names of family members, pets, friends, etc. A lot of this information is easy for hackers to find and they won’t hesitate to use it against you.
4. No important numbers
As with names, you shouldn’t use any numbers in your passwords that are easily discovered by hackers, including your date of birth, social security number, phone number, zip code, or anything similar. If you have trouble staying away from names and important numbers, PasswordsGenerator.com has a secure password generator that will take the guesswork out of it for you.
5. No real words
If it’s in the dictionary, it’s a real word, and it doesn’t belong in your passwords. There is an entire method of password hacking called “dictionary attack” that exploits people’s tendency to use dictionary words in their passwords.
6. Change is good
Make sure your password can be changed, if need be. Fingerprints and retinal scans seem like ideal passwords, except they can be replicated with the right technology, and they can’t be changed. You can create unique, strong easily changeable passwords with our passwords generator.
7. Clean out your browsers
Turn off automatic passwords, auto login, and password storage on your web browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) Any password stored in this way can be hacked.
8. And clean out the cloud
Don’t store any important passwords in the cloud, for the same reason as #7. Online storage is easily hacked into.
9. Sharing is not caring
Don’t log in to important accounts on shared computers (your home family computer is fine, as long as you trust everyone at home). This includes library computers, shared office computers, etc. The same goes for public internet connections, like a public wifi hotspot at a coffee shop, web proxies, free VPN or Tor.
10. “S” is for Secure
A strong password is no good if you transmit it willy-nilly. Only send sensitive information if you’re on a secure connection. A secure connection will say either “HTTPS” (as opposed to HTTP) or “SFTP” (as opposed to FTP). These connections are encrypted and much more difficult to hack than their counterparts.
11. A VIP deserves a VPN
You can make sure your connections are encrypted when using your mobile devices by setting up a VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your home computer. Then, whenever you use your cell phone, tablet or laptop, connect to the VPN and this will encrypt all the data that is leaving your mobile device so that hackers and hacking software can’t read it.
12. How secure is my password?
There are several password strength meters available online to check the strength of your passwords (make sure the site has https before the web address, not http. Remember, “s” is for “secure”). One slightly different take that I like tells you the time it would take for different speed hacking programs to crack your password. It’s useful information to have, but take it with a grain of salt and make sure to read the note if you use this tool. These are great if you want to confirm the strength of passwords you got from our secure password generator.
13. To change, or not to change?
The standard recommendation is to change your passwords every 8-12 weeks. If you’re using a good random password generator to create strong passwords all the time, and storing them safely (see #13), then changing passwords regularly is a good security measure. If, however, changing passwords often will just make you go back to weaker, easy to remember passwords, like your pet’s name, don’t bother. It’s better to have a really strong password, and keep it forever, than to have a new weak password every 3 months.
14. Store passwords safely
We’ve already said that you shouldn’t store important passwords in your internet browsers or in the cloud, and we at PasswordsGenerator.com don’t recommend you keep them on a sticky note under your keyboard either. The best way to store your passwords is to memorize a few master passwords and manage them with a password management software, or store your other passwords in a plain text file and encrypt the file with 7-Zip, GPG or a disk encryption software.
15. Don’t lose your passwords
Encrypt and store your passwords in a few different locations. That way, if you lose access to your computer or account, you can get your passwords back quickly and easily.
16. Two heads are better than one
If your account has the option, turn on 2-step verification. This adds an extra layer of security by not only requiring you to enter your password correctly, but also entering a code that the system will send to your email, SMS text messages, mobile or landline phone. This way, even if a hacker gets access to your password, your account will still be protected because he doesn’t have access to your phone or email account (hopefully your email has a different password! See #1)