Creating a strong password is crucial in today’s digital age to protect our personal and sensitive information. Hackers and cybercriminals are constantly evolving their techniques to crack passwords and gain unauthorized access to our accounts. A strong password acts as a barrier, making it significantly harder for them to succeed. It helps safeguard our online identities, financial data, and confidential information from being compromised. A strong password should be unique, complex, and difficult to guess. By investing time and effort into creating strong passwords, we can significantly reduce the risk of falling victim to identity theft, fraud, and other cybercrimes.
Creating a strong password is worth the effort
- Use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters: Start by choosing a password that includes a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters. This helps to increase the complexity of the password and makes it harder for hackers to guess.
- Include numbers and special characters: To further strengthen your password, incorporate numbers and special characters such as: !, @, #, $, etc. This adds an extra layer of complexity and makes it more difficult for attackers to crack your password.
- Avoid using common words or phrases: Avoid using common words or phrases that can be easily guessed. Hackers often use dictionary-based attacks to crack passwords, so it’s important to choose unique and uncommon combinations of words.
- Make it long: The longer your password, the more secure it becomes. Aim for a minimum of 12 characters, but ideally, go for even longer passwords. Longer passwords are harder to crack, as they increase the number of possible combinations.
- Use a password manager: Consider using a password manager to generate and store your passwords securely. Password managers can create strong, unique passwords for each of your accounts and store them in an encrypted vault. This way, you only need to remember one master password to access all your other passwords.
For more information on fraud and scams please visit our Security Center to stay up to date.
Opinions expressed above are the personal opinions of the author and meant for generic illustration purposes only. RCB Bank, Member FDIC.
Sources: GCF Global. (n.d.). Internet safety: Creating strong passwords. GCFGlobal.org. https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/internetsafety/creating-strong-passwords/1/#