You can share your WiFi password safely by using a strong password, creating a guest network, enabling your router’s encryption and regularly updating your router. Sharing
Password hygiene tips to follow include using unique passwords, enabling Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and keeping your passwords safe in a password manager. Password hygiene encapsulates the best practices for protecting your passwords and online accounts. When you practice good password hygiene, your strong passwords will prevent you from becoming a victim of cyber attacks, virus and malware infections, password breaches and more.
Read on to learn some of the best password hygiene tips for protecting your online accounts and private information.
1. Set strong passwords
One of the most important password hygiene practices you can do is create strong passwords for each of your online accounts. By using strong and unique passwords, cybercriminals will have a much more challenging time attempting to access your information. A strong password is considered one that has a minimum of 16 characters, containing uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. You should also avoid using common dictionary words, personal information or sequential numbers or letters in your passwords to strengthen them. For example, here are some passwords that would represent bad password hygiene:
- Password1234!
- ILoveRocky*1
- ABCDEFG_hi
Even though the passwords above contain uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols, they are weak passwords due to their predictability based on common patterns and information cybercriminals can learn about you through the internet. Using strong passwords is very important if you want to keep your private information secure and your online accounts safe.
Use a password or passphrase generator
If you’re having a difficult time coming up with strong and unique passwords, you can rely on a password or passphrase generator. A password generator creates random passwords based on your desired character length and other criteria (uppercase or lowercase letters, numbers and symbols). Similarly, a passphrase generator creates a longer password in the form of a phrase, with multiple random words separated by symbols and numbers for more secure login credentials. These tools make it much easier for you to create strong passwords because they are automatically created and completely random.
2. Use a password manager
Once you’ve generated the strongest passwords and passphrases, you will probably wonder how to keep track of them all. A password manager is designed to store your passwords for online accounts in a secure, digital vault. The only password you will need to remember is your master password to access the rest of your login credentials for your online accounts. When you use Keeper®, your password manager will also notify you of weak or reused passwords. You can then use a password generator to replace your weak passwords with much stronger ones to practice better password hygiene.
3. Enable passkeys when available
Not only should you be using a strong password, but you should also enable passkeys when you are able to. A passkey does not require a password to be used but instead allows you to log in to your accounts or apps using your fingerprint, face ID, voice recognition and other biometric information. Because your biometric information is unique to you, it would be impossible for a cybercriminal to assume your identity and gain access to your accounts if you have a passkey enabled.
The main differences between passwords and passkeys are that passkeys are resistant to phishing attacks and are not supported on every website in the same way passwords are. You can check our Passkeys Directory to see which websites support logging in with passkeys.
4. Use MFA for every account
If Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is an option for you to use when logging in to your online accounts, make sure to set it up. MFA requires you to input an extra form of authentication to access your online account or application. For example, a type of MFA could be an answer to a security question, a code from an authenticator app, biometric information or your location. Since MFA offers more security than just a password by itself, even if cybercriminals gain access to your login credentials, they would still need more forms of authentication if MFA is enabled.
5. Don’t reuse passwords or variations of the same password
Imagine that you use Password1234! as the password for every one of your online accounts. If a cybercriminal figures out your password, they will have access to your banking information, shopping accounts, social media profiles and more. When cybercriminals use a stolen login credential repeatedly to gain access to multiple accounts at once, it is known as credential stuffing. This is an effective attack for cybercriminals because they rely on people reusing their passwords. Instead of reusing your passwords, or a slight variation of the same password (Password1, Password2, etc.), practice good password hygiene by creating strong and unique passwords for each of your accounts.
6. Avoid sharing passwords in an unsecured way
There are times that you’ve either texted or received a message over social media from friends or family asking what the password is to a shared streaming services account. This would be an unsecured way of sharing your passwords because it is unencrypted and therefore puts your accounts in danger of being compromised. Instead, you can share passwords safely by using a password manager since your sensitive information is encrypted at all times.
7. Only change your passwords when necessary
Although it has been said that you should change your password every so often to keep your accounts safe, you should only change your passwords when you absolutely need to. Changing your password too often, like every 90 days, can lead you to using weaker or reused passwords, which jeopardizes the security of your accounts. Only change your passwords when your login credentials have been compromised or if your password keeper alerts you that your password is weak.
Practice good password hygiene to protect your accounts
These tips and best practices will help you begin to practice good password hygiene, which will keep your online accounts and private information safe from cybercriminals. By enabling multiple forms of authentication and creating strong passwords, you will be able to prevent yourself from becoming a victim of cyber attacks.
Start practicing good password hygiene by beginning a free 30-day trial of Keeper Password Manager today.