Cybersecurity: How to stop using “password” as your password.

Are you one of those who use “password” as the password to their online accounts? Or perhaps, you use ‘qwerty123’? This is your guide to creating strong passwords.

Image from iStock.

I would like to assume that the next question on your mind is “why do I need a strong password?”.

Just like a friend of mine asked “How can I be safe online? Is it all about my passwords?” No, it is not all about passwords but, that is the minimum you can do to be safe online. Passwords are gateways to your online account which is invariably your online identity. Hence, do you want to leave your online identity at the mercy of a cyber attacker lurking on the internet?

If your answer is NO, let’s proceed to create strong passwords and learn about good password practices. As to good password practices, we are going to use a checklist.

Image from Pixels.

Good Password Practice Checklist.

Here’s what you will do: Pick out one of your passwords and run it through this checklist.

• Do you use the same password across all your online accounts?
• Did you use any of your personal information as your password? By personal information, I mean, your date of birth, first name, your pet’s name, and whatnot.
• Is your password more than eight (8) characters long?
• Is your password a mix of lower and UPPER case letters?
• Does your password have numb3rs?
• Does your password have any special character$?
• Is it a dictionary word?

How many boxes did you check? Five? You can do better and that leads us to the next. How to create strong passwords. There are several ways to do this and if you are not up for creating passwords yourself, there is a way out.

The first method I would recommend is the storytelling method, this has worked for me. Let’s get to it.

1. Think of a story that resonates well with you.

Here’s an example, I am at a Cybersecurity Conference and I got a scholarship worth $500! (an exclamation mark, because I am screaming as I say this).

Do you have your story now? Try and factor in all the checklists above.

2. Next up, we are going to string the first letters of this sentence into our password.

IA@aCC&igaSw$500! Voila, you have your password.

Image from iStock.

The second method is the passphrase method.

All you have to do here is to create a short sentence that checks everything in our checklists above.

For example, MBBS is a six + x course in Nigeria. Let’s try and shape that into a password.

MbBsis@6+xc0uR$einNiGEria Whoosh! Look at that, a STRONG password.

And if you are already concerned about how to master all of these passwords to your different accounts, as I said earlier, there's a way out. PASSWORD MANAGERS have you covered.

What are password managers and what do they do? Consider a password manager as a personal assistant that would create, generate and store your strong passwords for you.

Image from iStock.

Here are some password managers you can try out to make things easy for you.

1. Dashlane.
2. Lastpass.
3. 1Password.
4. Bitwarden.

Use any of those and STOP using “password” as your password.

Bye! And till my next article.