Creating strong passwords, as well as safely storing them, are frequently covered topics because these practices are so important to safeguard your account and personal information against hackers. For maximum security, here are some reminders:
- Use a Password Manager to store your passwords. Password Managers don’t store decryption keys (a code a cyber thief needs to hack into an encrypted message, document, or data). So, even if an encrypted password is stolen or if the Password Manager is breached, it won’t compromise your password.
- Don’t let your browser or phone “remember” your passwords.
- Be creative answering security questions. Ironically, security questions can be insecure because they often ask about things a hacker could search online, such as a pet’s name, your high school, etc. Choose answers that are meaningful to you (but NOT the real answer). For example, instead of choosing your pet’s name, consider selecting a friend’s pet’s name as your security answer.
- Avoid using the same passwords across multiple sites. It’s easy on the memory, but could compromise safety and security on more than one account.
- Make passwords long. A 14+ character password is considered very strong. Instead of a word, think about a password as a sentence — mixing it up with capital and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols — such as: Iwant500chocolatechipCOOKIES:-)
- Avoid weak choices, such as simple repeating patterns (12121212); adjacent letters/numbers on the keyboard (e.g., ASDFJKL;); or part of an account number.
For more tips on passwords and other online security tips, go to cefcu.com/security.