Are your passwords strong enough to minimize your chances of identity theft or an invasion of your privacy?
As Nicole Perlroth, New York Times reports: “It is absurdly easy to get hacked. All it takes is clicking on one malicious link or attachment. Companies’ computer systems are attacked every day by hackers looking for passwords to sell on auctionlike black market sites where a single password can fetch $20. Hackers regularly exploit tools like John the Ripper, a free password-cracking program that use lists of commonly used passwords from breached sites and can test millions of passwords per second. Chances are, most people will get hacked at some point in their lifetime. The best they can do is delay the inevitable by avoiding suspicious links, even from friends, and manage their passwords. Unfortunately, good password hygiene is like flossing — you know it’s important, but it takes effort. How do you possibly come up with different, hard-to-crack passwords for every single news, social network, E-commerce, banking, corporate, and e-mail account and still remember them all?”
Click the image to learn several tips about how to improve your password security.
Image by Minh Uong/New York Times