123456, is this all you can think of?

The use of weak passwords is the most common way that hackers can get hold of your personal and sensitive data. If a child is able to figure out your password then doesn’t this prove how weak your passwords are? Maybe it’s time to reconsider!

As you may know online hackers are not new in the world of IT, although researchers have found that the most common password used was ‘123456’ – Yes, this is quite hard to believe but this password was found on the database more than 15,000 times.

More complicated passwords may be harder to remember as many individuals have various online accounts which all require a password. As we all know changing each password and making it secure for each site is very difficult but using a simple password across these sites leads to two main problems. Firstly, you have set a very low barrier for hackers and online criminals meaning that they will be able to attack your online accounts without the use of any software. Secondly and most importantly, ignoring password security may suggest ignorance to overall online security.

Simple passwords can still be made secure all you need to do is make them more complicated such as using upper and lower case letters and replacing vowels with numbers. This may seem like the more obvious option but it still makes the password more secure compared to just using a simple password.

So always remember the following tips:

Make the passwords complicated. The use of upper and lower case letters and numbers is important and longer passwords are more secure than shorter ones.

Remember your password! Mixing up letters and numbers may not always be easy to remember so you should aim to pick longer words that you will be more likely to remember.

Mix it around. Don’t think that one secure password will be enough. Using the same password for multiple accounts will not suffice. If this one password has been cracked then all your accounts are now unsecure. So remember to change your passwords!

By using the above tips, this makes you one step closer to ensuring your accounts are secure and inaccessible to hackers and online criminals.