Importance of Strong Passwords - Week 3 - Topic 1

 Importance of Strong Passwords - Week 3

This week we will talk about the characteristics for choosing a strong password, how to ensure the strength of password and other alternatives to keep your account secure, along with secure methods of communications over the internet.

Topic 1 - Strong passwords 

    Websites and other web services nowadays store all your passwords in a hashed from, usually SHA-1 or MD5, but that does not mean your password is completely secure. Threat actors can find out the hash of your passwords using a variety of different methods. So it is essential to make it as difficult for them as possible and not leaving your security to other companies. 

    When choosing a password you should ensure they are not dictionary words, and even less words related to you. Like your pet name, the name of your parents or city. Passwords should be a random assortment of lower/upper case letters, numbers and special characters with a minimum of 12 digits in length, the longer the better. If those characteristics are really hard for you to remember you can also use "passphrases" which are a mixture of random unrelated words which might make it a bit easier for you to remember. (e.g cat building red plane toilet)  

    Another characteristic to keep your account secure is; "1 account, 1 password". Meaning you should not repeat passwords for your accounts, as if your password is compromised in a low-level site they might get access to more valuable information on other sites with that same password. When possible always enable 2-factor authentication to ensure that even if an attacker gets your credentials a one-time key pass will be sent to you to ensure your identity while logging in. 

    If this seems like to much hassle for you, you could always choose a reliable password manager, password managers create strong passwords for each account you newly register and stores them in a encrypted format making it easy to log in to websites without needing to remember the complex passwords. Always use a reliable source.

    You can check the strength of your newly created password at https://www.security.org/how-secure-is-my-password/  When prompting a password please ensure that you put in a similar password not your actual one as you never know who might be behind these types of websites.

Example:

Topic 2 to be followed on separate blog