Cutline Speaks

Secure Passwords: Why You Can’t Be on The Internet Without One

posted by Morgan on September 22, 2009

I was on vacation in the mountains when I received this notice from my sister's friend via my mobile phone: "I believe [my sister's name] has had her Facebook/email/computer hacked in to or is in trouble in the UK." I panicked, and I started brewing all the worst-case-scenarios surrounding my sister's safety. Naturally, I called her immediately. As it ends up my sister was an unlucky victim of a cyber-criminal who had contacted a select few of her friends asking for money via instant messenger and email. A few reliable but not so lucky friends fell for this scam and wired money to the cyber-criminal posing as my sister. The cyber-criminal gained access to my sister's account because she had a weak password that she used for more than one account.

How can you avoid being the target of this kind of cyber crime? Create a strong password(s). While my sister's incident created a lot of issues, it was also educational. We learned that one of the worst mistakes people make is using the same passwords for multiple accounts online. Cyber-criminals are experts when it comes to trying to break weak passwords, and they can be successful taking down everyday users like you and me. All that being said, do yourself a favor by taking the time to educate yourself on how to create strong passwords. Here are a few useful tips taken from this Google blog post about secure passwords: 

• Create different passwords for different sites. Doing so will help ensure that if one password is compromised, the others will remain secure. You may not be able to have a unique password for every place you visit on the web (for some of us, that would be a lot of passwords to manage), but alternating between a set of different passwords across the web and making sure all accounts that contain highly sensitive information (like email accounts or online banking accounts) have unique passwords is a good place to start.

• Be careful how you share your information online. Some online services -- such as social networking sites and gadgets that scrape information from other products -- may ask you for a password or an API key. If you choose to use these kinds of services, take a few minutes to learn more about what they do to keep your sensitive information secure. And just like sharing passwords with other people, you should be aware that sharing this information increases the chances that it could be compromised.

Spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues to help combat these cyber-criminals. And be sure to share with us any other tips, resources or articles you've found. 

Tags for this post: morgan