By Duncan Meadows

One upper case, one lower case, a few numbers with a combination of symbols, and must be complex with 8 to 16 characters long.

Sound familiar? You guessed it, I’m describing your ideal password. Your password is the first line of defense in protecting your identity from cyber thieves.

It’s cumbersome to memorize all your passwords from your bank, phone, email, and work-related computers. But having a complex password is far better because hackers wouldn’t steal your information. Then again you are probably thinking “No one is going to steal my boring life of information.” I would guess again; your information is very valuable to the cyber thieves that lurk in the dark web.

Here are a few tricks and tips of how to keep track of your passwords without going insane remembering them.

• Make sure your passwords are complex. The problem with the more complex the password is, the harder it is to memorize, and you don’t want to be saving your password in a vulnerable place. Password Management software such as 1Password allows you to create complex passwords without having to memorize them. With 1Password, you can safely generate a secure unique password for every account you have and only have to memorize one password.
• Don’t save your passwords to your browser. If your device is ever compromised and accessed by someone unauthorized, that user will have access to your online accounts and passwords since they are stored locally
• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) whenever possible. MFA is simply requiring a second factor to the username/password combination to access your account. Types of this include a text, an email, a secret question or a PIN number.
• Use services such as Have I Been Pwned to make sure you’re using a strong password. This will tell you how many other times this password has been used and also if it has been used on the dark web you can check your password here. Type in the password you’d normally use to see it has been previously exposed to data breaches.

Don’t turn your life upside down because of your easy password; get smart and get secured. If you’re looking for more information on how to protect yourself from cyber threats, contact our security experts today to build a customized solution tailored to your needs.