A recent Digital Life blog post on the Sydney Morning Herald website posed an important question around the strength of online passwords.
Clearly, this isn’t the first time that the author of the blog, Adam Turner, has addressed this issue as he states:
“I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read about the importance of strong passwords, but it seems the message still isn’t getting through to many people. According to recent analysis of millions of stolen passwords, the most popular passwords are still “password”, “123456”, “12345678”, “qwerty” and “abc123”.”
The importance of maintaining strong and unique passwords for all of your online accounts must not be underestimated. In a world of online banking, shopping and socializing, remembering all of the different passwords can be a daunting task but Turner warns people not to fall prey to the temptation of using the same password for everything. “The PlayStation Network hack is a classic example of why this is a bad idea, as you can be sure that hackers will use the email/password combinations to try to access other services such as email, Facebook and online shopping,” Turner wrote.
Check out the Digital Tattoo page on outsmarting potential identity thieves to learn more about how you can protect yourself online. In the meantime, revisit those passwords and consider complicating things a bit. If you’re worried about forgetting the new upscaled versions, you can write them down but be sure to keep the list in a secure place.
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