How to Create Secure Passwords for Better Security Online?
As the use of online platforms has risen significantly so as the risk of cybersecurity attacks also increases. Having a weak password always remains one of the major vulnerabilities in both personal and business security. Here are pro tips to create secure passwords that protect your online data from cyber threats.
Using simple passwords such as “12345678”, and “abcdef,” or commonly recognizing information like birthdays, country names, pet names, etc. are one of the main causes of potential brute-force or cybersecurity attacks. Avoiding such mistakes can lead to a great loss of your important data on online platforms whether it is for business related or personal.
Therefore, creating a strong and secure password is the best technique from which you can save your personal data from being hacked by hackers.
Create a Secure Password with These Simple Tips
Creating a strong password is not a difficult task. However, you need unique and different ways from which you can create multiple unique passwords for different online platforms. So, without taking more time let’s discuss the 5 best ways from which you can create stronger and harder to crack passwords:
Mix Up the Characters
The first step you can use is to mix the characters. Sometimes, your password is easy and in simple form which makes it weaker and may get easily cracked. Therefore, you can create a secure password using a mixture of different characters such as:
- Uppercase Characters (A -Z);
- Lowercase Characters (a-z);
- Special Characters (&,#,%, etc.);
- Numbers (0-9).
For example:
| Weaker One | Stronger One |
|---|---|
| sunshine123 | $uNsh!ne3#4@ |
Using this technique will trick hackers and make it difficult for them to crack. Therefore, you can save your personal information by making a secure password using this method. If you use the password pattern like in the above example, it will take approximately 19 centuries to be cracked by the hacker.
Make them Long
Using a small password that contains minimum characters has a greater chance of getting cracked. It is suggested that you create passwords of at least 8 characters long, but preferably 12 or more.
This recommendation is centered on studies demonstrating that longer passwords are harder to crack. Therefore, you should aim to create a password with at least 12 characters. It will become more challenging for hackers to crack the password. You can make them long by repeating the characters and using numbers.
For example:
| Weaker One | Stronger One |
|---|---|
| Helloworld | HhHeElL0$ThEWolD |
Using such long characters will be hard for hackers to crack the password which will result in enhanced security of your personal data on any online platform.
However, if you create a password using such a pattern, it will possibly take 5 million years for a hacker to crack this password
Shorten the Word
Another useful method you can use is to shorten the word you are using in the password. For example, you may think of the phrase and remove the first, last, or even the middle of three letters of the word. That will make your password more unique and harder to crack. However, in some cases, while using this method, the whole word i.e. the, in, at, etc. gets deleted but that is okay if you remember your phrase.
For example:
- Full Phrase: “Tiger attacked buffalos in the jungle”;
- Stronger One 1: er acked falo sgle (Removing first three letters);
- Stronger One 2: Ti attac buffa jun (Removing last three letters);
- Stronger One 3: Tr atted bufos jle (Removing middle three letters).
You must be wondering if it sounds gibberish. Yes, that’s what we want. Using this technique, you can easily make your password stronger and more difficult to be cracked by hackers. Moreover, it makes it easier for you to remember such patterns.
Do you know? Using such techniques like the above-mentioned examples will surely secure passwords and may take up to 8,000 trillion years for a hacker to crack this code.
Use Invisible Characters
Using invisible characters within your normal passwords is an advanced technique to strengthen your weaker password. Such characters are not visible to eyes but will surely add complexity to the passwords which will eventually make it hard for hackers to crack the password.
However, you cannot manually add invisible spaces into the word. In that case, you must use an online tool to generate invisible characters to add to your password.
Here is a pictorial example of a tool which generates invisible characters online:
From using this tool, you can easily create invisible spaces to add in the password to make it stronger.
For example:
| Weaker One | Stronger One |
|---|---|
| Hello123 | Helㅤlo12ㅤ3 |
Using such invisible spaces in even a very weak password may take approximately 3,000 years for a hacker to crack the code.
Make the Password More Unique
The last step which we are going to discuss is to make secure and strong passwords more unique which takes years for hackers to crack. You can use different methods to secure passwords with uniqueness. For example, you can select a phrase and replace each letter with the previous in the alphabet. Let’s see its example:
For example:
| Weaker One | Stronger One |
|---|---|
| I like tomatoes | h khjd snlzsndr |
Using such a technique will not only help your password become stronger but also make it easier to remember. You can also apply this technique with your name, pet name, country etc. whichever you think suits best. Surprisingly, the total time a hacker needs to crack such a password as in the above-mentioned example will be 33 billion years.
Important Things to Do To Create a Secure Password
Here are some of the important things you can do to make your password more stronger and secure:
- Use minimum 12-16 characters in the password;
- Mixup the characters;
- Always avoid common and predictable passwords i.e. 1234, abcd, etc.;
- Don’t use personal information i.e. name, birth date, pet name, etc.;
- Use invisible characters to make the password more secure;
- Never reuse the password on multiple platforms;
- Enable 2FA (2 Factor Authentication).
Final Thoughts
Creating a strong password will not only save your personal or business confidential data but it helps protect it from unauthorized access, data breach, and much more. An extra minute spent reviewing password security can make the difference between a typical day at work and a massive security breach with extensive consequences for your firm or personal data.
In this blog post, we’ve discussed some of the main methods by which you can make your passwords much stronger to be cracked by any hackers in this century.