As the world adapts to less face-to-face interaction and more virtual, it’s easy to become lazy with how we use online tools.

The most obvious example is our choice of password. One of the ways we’ve made it easy for threat actors to commit cybercrime is by using poorly created passwords. Are your password habits leaving you vulnerable?

It’s important to change your password to avoid leaving your online accounts vulnerable, but a survey done by Digital Guardian highlighted that 11% of users have never changed their password. Look at some bad password habits that most people are guilty of using. Consider what you can do to better protect yourself from getting hacked.

Not Changing Your Password Frequently Enough

18.5% of users only change their passwords if they are notified of security issues, 70% of users change their passwords at least once a year, but the reality is that we should be changing our passwords every few months. Using a complex combination of punctuation, numbers, and capital letters makes it harder for hackers to infiltrate.

Using Personal Information

Most people find that remembering passwords can be extremely difficult. This is the number one reason people use personal information that is easy to remember. Personal data such as anniversaries, birthdays, or pet names make very weak passwords.

This is for the very simple reason that people already have this personal information posted across their social media accounts. Often when we use social media to promote a business, bits and pieces of personal information can be found dotted around these accounts and pages. So, it’s important to create a string of complex characters as your password.

Using the Same Password Across Multiple Platforms

If one platform suffered a security breach where data was stolen by a hacker and you use the same password across other devices and platforms. I’s easy for the hacker to take your password and hack every single account with it.

If you use the same password for your social media profile as you do your work computer, a hacker can take that password and sell it on the dark web or gain access to a lot of sensitive information.

Using Common Passwords

Making your passwords hard to guess is good practice. Passwords should be complex and have a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters with punctuation and other special characters. If you use simple and common passwords, hackers can effortlessly infiltrate your information.

Not Using Encryption or Two-Factor Authentication

Encryption services afford an extra layer of protection for passwords. This protects and online account in the event passwords are stolen by hackers. Using end-to-end encryption can protect passwords over the network. Two-factor authentication, or multi-factor authentication (MFA) means a user has to confirm their identity. It requires another layer of protection a long with a username and a password.

Passwords are a frustrating aspect of logging into platforms such as email but it is more important than ever that you exercise good password habits. If you have poor password habits, you are leaving yourself vulnerable to cybercriminals.

Check out our new Ultimate Online Safety and Parental Control Guide 2020 for all your online safety needs.