What is a strong password?

The Key to staying safe online is through having a strong password. In the past year, it was reported in the Cyber Security Breaches Survey 2020. The number of phishing attacks had risen from 72% to 86% (Phishing meaning a fraudulent attempt to steal personal information such as passwords or credit card numbers). In comparison to phishing attacks increasing by 14%, viruses and other forms of malware had fallen from 33% to 16%. These numbers could indicate that hackers are now more focused on scamming people out of their emails rather than full-on cyber attacks. This means it’s as important as ever and your responsibility to ensure you have a strong password!

How many characters should a password be?

When it comes to creating one make sure that the password you create is at least 12-14 characters long in length, for optimum security. Any password that’s longer than this would make it even stronger but ideally, 12-14 is good.

Numbers, Symbols, Capital Letters.

When creating your password ensure you mix up letters and characters, the more characters and symbols you use the harder it is for hackers to try and get in. Try throwing in @!£$*# in your password to make it as strong as you can.

Don’t Use Substitutions.

What I mean by substitutions is let’s say for instance your password is ‘Global’, replacing a couple of letters with numbers and using ‘G1oba1’ instead doesn’t make your password any better, it is still very weak. Even though it may be easier to remember this makes your account just as vulnerable as if it was the original word.

Should you use words from the dictionary in your password?

Stay away from passwords that use full words from the dictionary. For example, any word such as Dog, Car or Country is a bad idea as a word on its own like this is quite obvious and will leave you exposed. These also tend to be the first port of call for a hacker within a program, to test words from the dictionary. Instead of using words like this try mixing up random letters to produce something like this ‘Xd9o3Ld0Xm!Se3?’.

Don’t Reuse Passwords.

The risk of using the same password is quite obvious. If a hacker manages to find one of your passwords this would mean that all your accounts are now exposed. Try to make unique passwords that you can use across different accounts, this is especially important on websites holding sensitive personal data such as addresses, contact information and especially billing details.

All of this information could sound quite overwhelming when creating your password but it is all for your safety in a world where hackers are out to get your information. One tip I would recommend for remembering all your passwords would be to keep a note of these passwords on a piece of paper where they’re not accessible online!

ISO 27001 Standards aim to reduce risk in information security management. There are many points within the standard where passwords and information safeguarding is paramount to the effective information security of the organisation in question. Contact one of our consultants today to discuss ISO 27001 here.