After 130 million Adobe passwords were breached, I wrote a piece a few days ago about this event. As it turns out, major sites, including Facebook, were – and most likely still are – pushing people to change their login credentials in an effort to safeguard them elsewhere. I’ve written about passwords in the past, and once again referenced the famous Space Balls scene in which the leader’s password to the planet’s air shield is a simple “1,2,3,4,5.”
Once I wrote about the Adobe passwords and how Facebook and other sites have made people make immediate changes to their passwords on their sites, I had several conversations with folks here in the office about password protection and security. Most of us here safeguard ourselves in similar ways. For instance, all major logins, such as our primary email account(s), have different passwords. That way, if someone breaks into, say, my Gmail account, they would be unable to gain access to my online banking password. The same goes for the password I use for my work email. Those are all totally different.
So, here’s a quick list of things, again, you can do to protect yourself and avoid having your password stolen or compromised:
1) Don’t ever use a password example, like this – passwordexample1 – as your password on any account! (I know that seems like a no-brainer, but people – for some reason – still do this).
2) Make sure to use a variation of uppercase and lowercase characters. In addition, include symbols, such as: !,$,*, etc.
3) Again, have a different password for every account. And if that’s too hard, have at least 4-5 strong ones for your most important information
4) Do not use simple words (love, password, etc.), use your login as your password, or numbers that are simple
5) Change your passwords every quarter
6) Make sure that routine password maintenance are part of the procedures that adhere to your company’s protocol.
With these 6 tips, you are going to save your information from being compromised. It is important to be reminded of why we need to keep our passwords secure, because people forget or don’t follow the necessary steps to protect themselves.
