Password Protection
42 per cent of respondents didn’t think their accounts were valuable enough to be worth a hacker’s time. Which isn’t true. You may not be an executive, you may think your email or Facebook account is merely chatty. But if a criminal can find enough about you they’ll send a convincing message pretending to be from your boss, a bank, a credit agency, the company you just bought a car from or the government. If your Facebook account suggests you’re a great fan of the New England Patriots, a crook will guess one of your passwords is Tom Brady. Yeah, I know he’s on a new team.
Cyber Security Centre has some advice for creating passwords: First, make sure you have a different one for valuable accounts like your email, bank office and social media. Use a or a strong password of at least 12 characters. It helps to use at least one number, capital letter and a special character. Or, use a passphrase of at least 15 characters, which is easier to remember. Passphrases can be associated with the account. If your financial institution is the Bank of North Oxnard, your passphrase might be four words that start with B.O.N.O.
Don’t use common expressions, song titles or lyrics, movie titles or well-known quotes for passphrases. Do not use your personal details like birthday hometown or pet’s name either.
The center urges everyone to add two-factor authentication for even stronger account security. That way not only do you need a username and password to log in, you also need a fingerprint or a special code sent to another device like a smartphone. Check every account you use to see if it offers two-factor authentication, and then use it.
Final Words
Finally, some people should be very aware of their online security, including passwords. I’m talking about people who hold a C-suite title: Chief executive, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and the like, you’re a vice-president or senior manager; you’re a lawyer, accountant, real estate broker, your work for an investment firm. In short, anyone who handles money, and their assistants. You work in an IT department. You’re a reporter. In addition to being careful with passwords, these people should make sure their smartphone accounts have a PIN number. That’s a number on the account with your wireless carrier, and it will be needed to change anything on your account. It has to be different from the PIN number for the phone. Because if a crook can’t guess your email password they will try impersonate you to get a cellphone company to switch your phone to one they control and access your email that way. The PIN number will stop that.
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