Almost every app you download and every website you visit requires you to create an account with a password to use the services they provide. However, human being barely memorizes those dozens of different passwords at once, while easy or same passwords are likely to be hacked on the Internet. Thus, how to keep passwords safe online comes as a significant issue for us.
Why do We Need Strong Passwords?
Your passwords have a close relation to your online privacy because of the encryptions done to your online services such as e-mail address, phone number, and bank account, and are undoubtedly important information we need to pay attention to. Once your passwords are disclosed, hackers may have access to all your personal and financial information and might do anything that would mess up your life and drive you crazy, from draining your bank account to ruining all your social media accounts.
The past way of storing our passwords by writing them down on notes is quite inefficient and easy to lose in today’s digital world. It is considered to use some instruments to help us create a strong password instead of safely managing our personal information. The following content introduces several approaches to improve password security.
3 Password Security Tips to Protect Your Passwords
From password managers to two-factor authentication, here are some critical ways we’ve compiled that you can adopt when it comes to passwords security.
Do not use personal information in your passwords
Don’t put your name or names of family members or pets, your address, phone number, or birthdays in your passwords. This information can be publicly available or easy to get for hackers.
Create strong usernames and passwords
Weak passwords are always a target of cybercriminals while creating strong passwords that are hard to guess and contain a variety of characters can greatly reduce the risk of being hacked through passwords. For example, “9SpidErscalKeto.” or “Ef6e-79P-B13^qR” are regarded as strong passwords while “iloveyou789” is an extremely weak one. This is the first step you can do to take the precaution of securing your online accounts.
Don’t recycle your passwords
The second tip on how to safeguard your passwords is to remember do not to recycle any of your passwords, but use different passwords for each site. Using the same password for several accounts is really a dangerous thing because you are just opening your privacy door to hackers! You should keep that in mind especially if you’ve had the password being attacked or stolen before.
Change passwords regularly
Change your passwords for important accounts every month or two months.
Use a password manager
However, the best or most efficient way to secure your passwords is to draw support from a password manager, which can handle all your passwords easily in an app and ensure security at the same time. As an encrypted digital vault, your credentials will be safely stored in password managers and the risk of passwords stolen is minimized.
Use VPN when logging in via public WiFi
When using public WiFi, avoid logging in to important accounts or using VPN to encrypt your data.
Confirm if your passwords have been stolen
To find out the possible security breaches or identity theft timely is also essential in keeping your passwords safe. Once you discover your account is compromised, please take all the measures to change your password as quickly as possible. In this way can reduce the losses from personal data leakage.
Use two-factor authentication
Two-factor authentication or 2FA is a security system that requires two separate, distinct forms of identification, such as password, text message code, or fingerprint. With the double security protection system, hackers are less likely to log in into your account successfully even with the password. 2FA does contribute to account security, but it is not foolproof.
How to Create a strong password
There are many tips for you to craft a unique, strong password. For example, create longer passwords with a minimum of 10 characters, modify easy-to-remember phrases with various characters, and don’t use memorable keyboard paths. Additionally, if you have a problem in developing your own password, consider an online password generator.
Avoid using birthdays, obvious numbers, addresses, and pet names as your passwords. These are all vulnerable and easy-to-guess information that has nothing to do with protecting your digital life. A strong password is generally a complex one that includes a mixture of letters, numbers, symbols, and punctuations. It’s usually difficult to remember without any external instruments. Therefore, we prepared several best passwords managers in 2021 for you below.
Best Passwords Manager in 2021
Bitwarden
As the most trusted open-source password manager for business, Bitwarden offers services of generating, saving and managing your passwords safely and securely for free or at an extremely low price. You can access Bitwarden from anywhere and with any platform and share secure information easily with others in your organization.
LastPass
LastPass helps you to store all your personal information in one device and is able to automatically fill in your online logins, forms, and payment information with convenience. Meanwhile, it provides other privacy-secure functions like a secure digital wallet, dark web monitoring, and online password generator tool.
1Password
1Password saves all your passwords and encrypts them with your Master Password. Just as it calls, you only ever need to remember one password. Besides, it will not only alert you to password breaches and other security problems but also act as an authenticator for sites with two-factor authentication.
Dashlane
Dashlane backs up your passwords and keeps them up to date across your phone, computer or tablet. With its main features similar to the LastPass and 1Password, it is easy to install and use. But you need to pay a certain amount of money in order to obtain more services.
Keeper
Keeper is a well-designed app that offers different tailored plans for the family, enterprise and public sector. It ensures cybersecurity by safely storing your personal data and providing the 2FA service. Keeper supports the ability to add up to 5 emergency contacts to grant vault access in the event of an emergency or death.
CoverMe Secure Vault
The excellent CoverMe secure vault matches the capabilities of other great password managers and is very easy to use. Featuring end-to-end encryption, CoverMe allows you to store photos, videos, passwords and documents. Beyond that, it’s also available for private sharing, album creation and photo import. In general, it’s worth your consideration.
Other security and privacy features of CoverMe
CoverMe also has numerous other security and privacy features that make it an outstanding app in protecting your privacy.
Private Phone Number.
Instead of using your primary phone number, it allows you to use several temporary private phone numbers to communicate with others and protects your real personal information perfectly. You can use the private phone number in doing business, dating, job-hunting and any other occasions.
Self-Destruct messages.
Private messages can be programmed to self-destruct messages automatically from both participating devices in CoverMe. It is also capable of sending messages that delete themselves after being read with no trace or history left behind.
Secure Vault to store files and photos.
Through end-to-end encryption technology, your private photos, videos, notes and documents are locked in a secure vault safely with cloud backup.
Safer with CoverMe Vault
Only you can see your passwords