Quick Tips on Cyber Safety - On Passwords

@1. Get your 2-FA on your accounts; use two-factor or multi-factor authentication. This may sound fancy but it's a double lock opener for your account. Some emerging technologies are now using the –a retina scan, a thumbprint scan, a facial recognition scan etc .

@2. Focus on length of the Password: The ideal passwords are at least 12 – 15 characters long, just as an example we may create a short sentence that’s easy for you to remember, like winterismyfavoriteseason. For added strength, you can add numbers and symbols to the mix: winteri$myfav0riteseason.

@3. Online password generator: We can use this site to generate automated passwords:- https://identitysafe.norton.com/password-generator/. To check your passwords’ strength, we can use this site to know the health of the password:- https://howsecureismypassword.net/.

@4. Beef up your passwords and use different passwords for accounts that contain sensitive or personally identifying information. Just like we use different keys to protect different door locks, similarly we should different passwords to protect important accounts to avoid vulnerability to thefts and compromises.

@5. Password managers: If we can’t remember so many passwords, the way out is use a password manager which will securely remember your passwords so you don’t have to worry. These are encrypted vault, which can only be opened with a master password. Some of the most secure password managers are- NordPass , Dashlane , RoboForm , LastPass , Enpass .

@6. Share your password with…. no one! Never trust anyone. Be very careful while keying your password. It’s important to keep your passwords private, and to respect the privacy of others passwords too.

@7. Don’t let browsers remember your passwords. This feature in browsers may make it convenient to get in to our accounts, but on the flip side of this coin there is a significant risk , which is allowing someone else who is unknown to us and who’s using the same computer or device to access our accounts without needing to know our password. It enables Cookies to remember our password. The enable safety the first thing that can be done is to disable the “remember password” feature in all my browsers.

@8. Be strategic with your secret questions and answers. The secret questions which we put in our accounts aren’t really secret. Someone who knows us and can Google about us or look into social media accounts can easily guess where we went to high school or our favorite color or my mother's maiden name. There’s no rule that we have to be honest when answering these secret questions, so we may manipulate our answers accordingly.

@9. Don’t take the bait. The hackers have become smart and are now resorting to new methods to get hold of our passwords through Phishing, Vishing and Smishing varieties of frauds. One common way they do this is by calling and pretending to be a representative of a bank or insurance company etch at and convincing us to give them private information (vishing). Another way is by sending an email pretending to be from a website, service, friend, or colleague, and giving us a website link to follow. When we click on that link we’re either directed to a fake website that asks for your private information, or the link launches malware onto your computer (phishing).

@10. Remember to log off. We should get into the habit of logging out from any devices that we use.

@11. Create a separate email account to use for logging in to online accounts or making purchases. Creating an alternative email account that we can use for online accounts and purchases can help protect our privacy, and also help us avoid all of that spam in our actual email inbox .

@12. Don’t wait for bad things to happen. Most of us wait for something bad to happen before taking any security measures. If someone is trying to blackmail, call the police and report it to them. Collect the evidence, keep any threatening emails or any other form of communication. and take screenshots. The crux is to take immediate action.