Do you have an automated garage which allows access straight into the house? That may be convenient to avoid getting soaked during the wild Cape winter storms, but imagine if someone stole the remote that operates your garage door. Suddenly a malicious person has access to every room in your home at the click of one button.
Eek!
This is exactly what can happen online if you use the same username and password combination on all your various accounts: email, bank website, Apple or Android ID, and membership sites.
If a hacker gets hold of your username and password via any one site, they can use this information to attempt to log in to various other websites and companies. Before you know it, they have access to your whole digital “house”.
The good news is that you can easily lock hackers out
You lock them out by using a different password on every website you access.
This is the equivalent of having every room inside your house locked (and each door having a different key) when the sneaky thief arrives to use the garage remote.
Creating strong new passwords and storing them can be challenging. Let’s take a look at how you can tackle that.
This is what makes a password strong:
- At least 10 characters long
- Contains upper case and lower case letters, as well as numbers and symbols
- Contains no meaningful words, names or dates
Here are two methods you can use to create good passwords
- Take a sentence that you can remember, perhaps something that describes part of your life.
Write out the sentence then select the first letter of each word.
Substitute in some numbers, symbols, and a capital letter or two.Here’s an example:Sentence: I play bridge skilfully every Thursday with 3 good friends!
Password: IpbSeTw3gf! - Choose four short, unrelated words. Write them out and add/substitute some numbers and symbols.
Here’s an example:
Four unrelated words: monk tall run beds
Password: M0nk_t@ll-run/B3d$
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