What you’ll learn (TL;DR)
- Regularly updating passwords, especially when getting new devices or noticing suspicious activity, is crucial for maintaining online security.
- Using different passwords for each account prevents a single compromised password from giving access to all your accounts.
- Using passphrases with 15 characters or more can significantly enhance your security.
- Take immediate action if a data breach occurs, including changing your passwords and monitoring accounts for suspicious activity.
Be Password Smart
Strong passwords are critical in today’s interconnected world, where our digital lives blend seamlessly with our homes, finances, and identities. As a homeowner, you might store sensitive information online, such as financial records and personal documents. You might find it convenient to make your mortgage and utility payments online. If you’ve joined the smart home wave, you may also have various smart devices connected to your home network.
Strong passwords are more than just random numbers and letters—they are the keys to your online identity and the first line of defense to protect your accounts, networks, and devices.
Here are three steps you can take today to become Password Smart.
Change Up Your Passwords
Regularly changing passwords gives your online security a much-needed refresh. Whenever you get a new device, change the default password immediately— it’s like changing the locks when you move into a new home. Also, consider changing your passwords every three months. This can help protect you if your password is stolen without your knowledge. Most importantly, if you see any suspicious activity on one of your accounts—like a new profile on your favorite streaming app —change the account password immediately. Whenever possible, use the option to sign out of the account on all devices to ensure that only you are logged into your account.
Be Unique
Imagine using the same key to open all the locks in your life. Convenient, right? But what if you lose that key? Suddenly, everything is vulnerable. This same concept applies to your passwords. While it might seem convenient to use the same password for all your online accounts, if a hacker manages to crack it, they could gain access to all your accounts. Consider creating a unique password for each of your accounts and devices. This can help ensure that, if one of your accounts is broken into, the others are still protected.
Longer Passwords Are Stronger
Did you know that password length is much more important than password complexity? You probably know complex passwords use a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. While complexity does make a stronger password, the F.B.I. emphasizes that password length holds greater importance. They recommend crafting passwords with 15 characters or more, and one simple method to achieve this is by using a passphrase. Passphrases are combinations of words that are easy for you to remember but difficult to crack because of their length, for example, I-am-learning-to-be-Cyber-Smart.
Protect Yourself from Data Breaches
So far this year, numerous companies reported data breaches impacting their customers. If you hear about a data breach in the news and have an account with that company, the first thing to do is change your password. Then visit our
Be Cyber Smart page
for tips on monitoring that account for suspicious activity.
How strong are your passwords? You can check out your password strength here at
Bitwarden
to see how your passwords measure up.
