Hey guys welcome to safe to our new blog series; “Safe in the Wild”.
The aim of this blog is to give you advice on how you can stay safe in the wild. i.e. on the internet.
Every week we will be giving you helpful tips on how you can enjoy the internet with its many benefits, while avoiding its countless pitfalls.
This week we will be focusing on password! Yes, it might sound boring, but this really is the St Peter of all your accounts, the gate keeper. If your password has been compromised, you have no way of protecting your accounts. This brings me to my first point.
- Change your passwords often. Every 60 days if possible, I can already hear the complaints, “..who has the time to change their password every 60 days, I can barely think of one secure password..”
Let me drop a nugget here quick.
Open a web browser, go to https://www.haveibeenpwned.com, this site allows you to check if your email and password combination has been compromised in any one of the many data breaches that have already happened.
Type in your email and click “pwned?”. This will let you know if your email has been compromised and in how many breaches. If you scroll a little lower you will see the Experian data breach that happened recently in South Africa, compromising over 1.2 million accounts.
Now that you see how regularly breaches happen, what do you need to do to generate secure passwords for your accounts.
- Enter, my second point. User a password manager, which is what have I been pwned recommends, 1Password is an option, and so is Last Pass. These services allow you to generate secure passwords and store them so you can access them later. If you ever need to change your password, which you should, you can generate a secure password and save it to your password manager.
If you would like to know more about password managers, let me know in the comments below and I will write a blog about it.
My final point is this.
- Do not tell anyone your password, do not even let the browser remember your password, especially for online banking.
Browsers store your username and password in a file that is easily opened by someone who knows what they are doing. For example, Chrome stores your passwords in the settings window, your device password which is easily hackable reveals all saved passwords.
You will be surprised how many people will tell you their password if you ask them the right question.
To the best of your ability, keep your passwords private!
Ok to recap,
- Change your password regularly especially if you have been pwned.
- User a password manager, it will make your life so much easier.
- Do not tell anyone your password.
The vlog version of this blog is below if you prefer that to the blog.
