how secure is your password?With all of the stories in the news about data breaches, identify theft and hacked passwords most of us are understandably concerned about keeping our online accounts, social profiles and financial data safe.  After all, stealing passwords and other forms of cybercrime are big business for hackers, so attempts by hackers to gain entry to users’ accounts are unlikely to end any time soon.

According to research by the anti-virus software manufacturer, McAfee, cybercrimes cost the global economy around $400 billion dollars each year. Since criminals have such a huge financial incentive to attempt to gain entry to your accounts, it is a good idea to take steps to protect yourself by ensuring that your password is secure.

Creating a secure password is often easier said than done. In addition to being safe, you must also be able to remember it for each site that you use. If you have several online accounts, you may have turned to software such as a password manager to keep up with all of your unique logins and passwords, but even a password manager is only as safe and secure as the master password that you assign to it.

Despite all of the dire news and warnings about the need to create a unique and hard to guess password for each online site and profile that you use, a recent story in The Week reports that about 25 common words and strings of numbers are used for over 2% of the world’s online passwords. Examples include the string of numbers 1,2,3,4 or ordinary words such as password, monkey and dragon.

Try these 10 tips to create a secure password.

  • Use a different password for each online account.
  • Avoid using personal information, such as birthdays and other important dates, as well as common words, when creating your password.
  • Mix things up by substituting numbers in the place of letters, and use special characters as well as both upper and lowercase letters in your passwords. Use as many characters as you are allowed when you are creating your passwords. For example, a 20 character password is harder to crack than an 8 digit one.
  • Make certain that you regularly change your passwords and don’t reuse old ones.
  • Add an additional layer of security by enabling two-step verification for your Google accounts. This step requires both your password as well as a code that is sent to your phone by text in order to log into your account.
  • Use security questions and hints with hard to guess answers when creating your passwords.
  • Make it easier to remember your passwords by using a root and extension model as your base code when creating your passwords. It can also be easier to remember your password if you use a special word or catch phrase that only has meaning to you, and that is only known by you. Once you decide on your base code, you can then customize it with additional special characters.
  • For less important accounts you can make it easy to remember your password and ensure that it remains secure by taking advantage of the ability to register and log into sites with social profiles such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  This way you don’t have to remember as many passwords and you only have to update your password in one place.
  • Ensure that your computer is protected with anti-virus software that is up-to-date and be careful what sites you visit or what you click on and download when you are online. Many times you may have a perfectly secure password, but hackers can still gain entry to your accounts when you unknowingly download malware.
  • Avoid using the remember password feature for your financial accounts. This way if a hacker does gain entry to your computer or smartphone, they will need to correctly type in both your login and password to access the account. 

Despite these precautions, it is still possible to become a victim of hacking or another cybercrime.  If this happens to you, you can lessen the damage by frequently checking your accounts for signs of hacking as well as signing up for alerts when changes to your accounts or other transactions occur.

Have you ever had your password stolen or been the victim of a cybercrime? What happened when your account was breached? Why not share your experience with our readers in the comments section below?