Previously, Managing Director, Amjad Shakeel was invited to speak about the recent Celebrity iCloud hacking on the BBC 5 Live Wake Up to Money programme. Amjad spoke of the necessity to ensure that you use strong complex passwords.
One of the main problems with creating passwords is users forgetting them. To combat this, users start using simple things like: a pet’s name; child’s date of birth, partner’s first name, the current year – anything to give the user a hint to remember their password.
To a hacker that has managed to get access to your computer, that is like locking your car and leaving the key on the roof. Without using specialised tools, a hacker can get all sorts of sensitive information: name, children’s names, close relatives names, dates of birth. Most of this, is available from people’s social networking sites and all can be regarded as potential passwords.
Do not use personal information
It is far too easy for a hacker to guess your password when it contains personal information. In a nutshell: never use it.
Do not use a real word
Today, it is easy enough for a hacker to get a run a programme that will enter every word in the dictionary and try it as your password.
Mix different character types
When you make a password, replace some letters with numbers, symbols and capital letters and add these in the middle of words. A mixture of these will make life much harder for hackers and may deter them from your network.
Use a Passphrase
A Passphrase is where you take a phrase/line from a song, poem, play, film any phrase you will remember and use the first letter from every word to create a Passphrase E.g. To be or not to be, would become T0B3O$N8T8B!
Use a password management tool
A password management tool will safely and securely store and remember your password. These tools store your passwords and user names in an encrypted form. Some of these tools will even auto fill some passwords for you.
By combining all these tips, we can create a simple and very secure password, – T0B3O$N8T8B!
N.B in posting this “T0B3O$N8T8B!” is no longer a secure password, so don’t use it.
