The worst case scenario when it comes to your website is finding that is has been hacked. This can also go for your social media platforms, emails, and accounting software. The best way to prevent and avoid being a hacker’s target is to have a proper password in place. Hackers can be anyone you know or don’t know. If you have a simple password, for the sake of remembering it more easily, this makes it extremely simple and quick to discover. The best thing you can do is have a strong password with a variety of letters, symbols, and numbers to keep your business’ online presence safe.
When creating a password, you want to include a variety of letters, numbers, and symbols. Length is also a determining factor in whether a password is strong. A password as simple as “bunny” can be discovered instantly, while something like B.unny3@t5kArr0ts! can take up to millions of years to crack, according to Better Buys. Your password should also be at least 16 characters long. The longer the password is, the longer it takes for a hacker or password cracking software to narrow down their search. Passwords with more than 8 characters can begin a search within 10 quadrillion combinations to sift through.
Things to not use when creating a password are any personal identification numbers or words, such as license plates numbers, birthdays, names, or predefined numerical sequence (like 123456). Also, try not to use the same password for all your accounts, no matter how easy it makes life. Once one account is hacked, it’s only a matter of time before the other accounts are, too.
You can try several things to remember all the passwords. Some people use key phrases, such as “The favorite food of baby rabbits” for the above example password. You can also store a notepad file on a USB thumb drive that contains your passwords.
Using any method to remember your passwords is better than reusing old passwords, allowing browsers to remember the passwords, and infrequently changing your password.
Lifehacker has a lot of great suggestions on password managers, like Lastpass or KeePass. When choosing a password manager, review their security measures. Avoid companies who use plain text password storage systems and basic password encryption. Use companies that have slow hash systems which make it incredibly difficult to hack passwords.
Using multi-factor authorization like a verification code requirement after you put in your password and username is a great additional security measure. You can also use biometrics such as a fingerprint or voice recognition. Biometrics are a popular choice for large banking firms and those with smartphones.
As you can see, making sure your online accounts are safe with proper passwords and ways to remember or store them is key to avoiding a possible attack. Not only does it give you more security, but you customers will also feel secure in doing business with you. If you need more advice or assistance in how to securely protect your online accounts, send us a message today!
