More often than not, people don't put a lot of thought into their passwords. They use some combination of birthdays, child or pet name and street address to cobble up a password. In doing so, they haven't thought that a lot of this information is unprotected and readily available on the internet.
When you are online, you are shoulder to shoulder with people from all over the world. This thought segues perfectly into the title of today's post and the accompanying article behind it,
"why 'ji32k7au4a83' is a common and terrible password"
It is not a long article but gives insight into the need for complex passwords and that people in the U.S. are not the only ones with password security issues.Remember people have used the following examples for their passwords; password, abc123, 1999 and variations of the word "password" such as P@$$w0rd. A large client of mine used this regularly or some variation until recently, and they had a full time IT department, several hacks as well as I recall.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-reason-why-ji32k7au4a83-is-a-common-password/?ftag=TRE49e8aa0&bhid=27630927001468733386426006914379
No one said online security is easy but at the very least please apply these basic rules when it comes to safeguarding your information and ensuring a pleasant online experience;
1. When choosing your password, use unrelated complex random sequences of letters/numbers and special characters (if they are allowed).
2. Do not use the same password for different accounts.
3. Change your password annually if not more frequently.
If you are typical of most people, this can be a lot of passwords. The use of a password manager is one option for you. Password managers such as Dashlane and LastPass are good solutions but you must make sure that your computer is free of malware before installing a password manager and that you protect and keep it clean afterward. A password manager cannot provide security on a machine that is compromised.
Thanks for reading and stay safe!!!
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