Hey there, it’s time to change your password now!

While I was learning internet security our instructor as a means of introduction showed us a statement credited to John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, a leading IT company that says

“There are two types of companies; those who have been hacked and those who don’t yet know they have been hacked”.

You see the idea behind this is that internet security is not an event but a process, so if you think you are safe now you might be right but that can change at any moment.

There are people who are constantly trying to find flaws on the different internet platforms and protocols, while some are doing so to fix them some are doing so to exploit the flaws so we should do our best to stay safe while we surf the net.

A sure way to stay safe is to create strong passwords and I will advise that we also change our passwords periodically. You see there are people who are constantly trying to gain access or ‘hack’ your accounts and they are many tools at their disposal. Some tools try many variations until they eventually get your password while some just generally use social engineering and just guess your password (especially if it’s simple to guess). As a rule, some companies mandate their employees to change their passwords every 30 days to keep it difficult for hackers to guess. Changing your password to your email and social media accounts after every 30 days can be very stressful but you should consider changing them every six months or at most every 12 months. This should prevent your precious accounts from unwanted guests.

Now these are steps to create a strong password

• First of all, a strong password must consist of at least 8 characters, an uppercase, lowercase, numerals, and symbols such as @!#$%

• It should not contain your username, phone number, date of birth or any other information about you that is easy to access.

• You can create a password from an acronym from an easy to remember piece of info. For example, I love plantain, it is my favourite meal can be converted to the acronym  iLuvPimfm

• You can substitute letters to numbers or symbols in this easy to remember info {1 l0V3 pl@nt@1n}

• Do not use incremental passwords like 12345 or Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

• You can relate your password to your favourite team or character and still apply the above tricks to make it difficult to guess. 

Other things to note are;

o    Use passwords that are easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess, try to avoid using your date of birth as this could be easily guessed

o    If you use a pattern, always remember to wipe your screen to remove your finger impression so others can’t guess your pattern.

o    Create additional accounts for guests. By doing this, other people who use your device will not have access to your personal data.

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Again, always remember to logout of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and your email accounts, especially when you use a public or shared PC. Also, try not to check the “Remember my password” box too.

o   Never text or email personal information like PINs and Passwords to anyone.

 If you ever feel that your account has been compromised make sure you change your password immediately and click the ‘log out from all sessions’ button on your various accounts.

You can drop your comments below if you need further clarification.

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