It is something that can upset your love life. If in the wrong hands, it can affect your public image. It can change your fortune, taking you from riches to rags. To take it to the next level, it can sometimes be so crucial as to impact national security. Yeah, we are talking about passwords. A password has become an integral part of our lives. Yet, so often do we hear that so and so’s account got hacked. This is because most people make the most stupid mistakes while setting their passwords. Here, we take a look at some of those mistakes and how we can avoid them:
1) Only Alpha-Numeric Passwords
ashley92, gandhi87, and so on and on. I am sure almost all of you have kept a combination of your name and birth date or year as your password at some point of time in your life. Now, the problem with these kinds of passwords is simple. It becomes easy for hackers to get access to the system simply by using a tool that tries all kinds of alpha-numeric combinations and ultimately guesses the right one. This can be solved by using special characters like @, $, ^, etc. This doesn’t make it impossible to guess but it is much better off than only an alpha-numeric one. In fact, many online sites have started making it mandatory for users to include a special character in their passwords.
2) Feelings as passwords
Okay. Whether you agree or not, all of us are a tad bit emotional. Add to that the fact that the first time that we set a password; we are in the teen age, when we are most emotionally charged up. So, it is not surprising that we set our first passwords as ‘friendship’, ‘love’, ‘sexy’, ‘revenge’, and the most common one, ‘ILoveYou’. As regards these passwords, the trouble is that they are dictionary words and hackers have a tool that can try and guess your passwords using all the dictionary words. So, make sure that you use your emotions wisely (or rather, don’t use them while setting passwords).
3) Series of numbers or alphabets
1234567890, hijklmno (H2O), abcdef are some common ones. Now, after dictionary words, if there is any bigger mistake that users make online, it is using a series of continuous alphabets or numbers. I mean, every time you come across a secured WiFi connection, the first thing that you try is the name of the place and then you try 1234567890 because many network administrators who come to set up the WiFi system at your place often set this as the password. A way to get around this mistake is to use a series which is a combination of alphabets and numbers and making sure that the alphabets used are neither a continuous series nor make up a dictionary word.
4) Same passwords for multiple sites
We all know that we must not keep the same password for multiple accounts because if one account gets compromised, the rest are also out of your hand. But still, like all other things, here also, ease and convenience take precedence over security and responsibility.
5) Passwords based on the site name
Okay. Not everyone is lazy to use the same passwords for multiple websites or online accounts. Some people work hard and try and figure out another way to set up different passwords for different sites that are still easy to remember. If it’s an online shopping site like Amazon, they set up a password with the site’s name in it along with a common factor like their birth date, which is there in all passwords. This way they just need to remember the common factor and then they can easily recall the password for the respective sites by just looking at the site name. Now, this is certainly smarter than setting the same password for all sites but the problem is that those who want to get into your accounts without your permission are smart enough to realize this trend.
6) Password
I know. It’s the most stupid password there ever can be. But then, the title of the piece is “6 Most Stupid Password Mistakes People Tend To Make” so I couldn’t have ignored this one, howsoever I wished, as this is still one the most commonly used passwords all over the world. The funny thing is there are two kinds of people who use ‘password’ as their password. First, those who are really new to the online world. The second group of people is those who think they are being smart by keeping ‘password’ as their password because no one will ever guess it as they would be thinking, “Who keeps their password set to ‘password’?”Trust me; it’s not smart or cool. Hackers aren’t egoistic. They will try every single word to get access to your bank accounts.
In conclusion, setting a secure password is a critical aspect of safeguarding our online presence, yet it is often overlooked or mishandled. Common mistakes include using simple alpha-numeric combinations, emotional words, predictable series, and site-based or repetitive passwords. These practices make accounts vulnerable to hacking. Incorporating a mix of characters, avoiding dictionary words and predictable sequences, and ensuring unique passwords for different sites are key steps towards enhanced security. Ultimately, the effort put into creating a strong password is a small but crucial investment in protecting our digital identity, personal information, and online assets from unauthorized access.
