Password Security

People have a lot of online accounts. If you are anything like me, you will forget the majority of your passwords a week after you have placed them, and have to go through that tedious process of requesting an email notification to change it.

The one thing we shouldn’t do, whether we use our Apple Mac or O2 – Samsung Galaxy, is use the same password over and over. However this is a difficult feat for most of us because face it, our memory isn’t all that great. How can we possibly remember which password goes where? For the security novices, here are a couple of tips:

Storing your password

You can store them online and offline. The trick is in finding a place that is secure like LastPass or KeePass. Alternatively you can save them on your browser, however this can be dangerous if anyone were to hack into your PC, Mac or Tablet.

Resetting

Reset your password regularly to ensure your accounts are safe. You can request a new password if you have forgotten it, you can reset the password by logging into the account, or you can answer the security questions. Yes it is tedious, but worth doing.

Upper and lower case

To make your password difficult to figure out, you should add at least one upper case letter to throw off a hacker. Don’t just place it at the beginning. This is the most obvious place to try. A lot of sites like iTunes use upper case as a password requirement.

There is no guarantee no matter what you do, but above all else: Don’t write your passwords down! Not in a notebook, not on your hand, not on a post-it note. Unless you are planning to hide it in your safe, under the floorboards, otherwise anyone can look.