How to generate a strong password and easily keep it secure.

Everyone has secrets in their lives and somewhere along the way your password should fit in. In practice, online passwords should remain private and never shared. Whether it’s your password to check bank balances or login to social media accounts, that string of characters used to access it should be treated as one of your most personal possessions.

Human nature has its way of blurring the lines though. How many times have you written down a password on a sticky or created something that’s simple to remember? Making things easier can actually make things harder in the long run – Who could ever know the password to your online bank account is your cats name “Fluffy”? Am I right?...

Wrong!...

Cybercriminals are adept in trawling the internet for information about you which they can piece together and create a larger picture about you. So, that great site you signed Fluffy up to years ago, using your personal information, that also had a data breach before going bust has put a potentially large hole in your privacy.

Do you see the connection?

Why do we need strong passwords?

We have heard it time and time again. Using strong passwords across all your online accounts ensures a safer and securer digital life. When you create a strong password, it not only helps protect your device from viruses, spyware, malware and ransomware attacks but it also helps give you that extra layer of safety in the event of your online privacy being exposed.

If you use the same passwords across several websites, this poses a large risk to your security. It could mean all the accounts on other sites that you use the same password on could now be at risk as well…and there’s no point in blaming Fluffy.

A password that once protected your devices now protects your information so why not take good care of it?

What is a strong password?

In order to protect your accounts it’s important to keep your online accounts safe using strong, unique passwords. This means creating a combination of upper case, lower case, alphanumeric characters, symbols and long password length. To make it more difficult for cybercriminals to access your information, change your passwords every three months. That way, if a cybercriminal gets your password, they can’t access all of your accounts. It is also a good idea to turn on 2FA (two factor authentication) or fingerprint pin unlock where available.

8 tips to create a secure password:

1. Password length is important. Create an indistinguishable passphrase of at least 12 characters long. This will help prevent it being guessed or even hacked.
2. Mix it up – Ensure your password has a mix of upper, lowercase, symbols and numbers. 
3. Create different secure passwords for each online account.
4. No pet names! Never use easily guessed words and phrases
5. Never store your password’s where anyone can access them easily 
6. Avoid real words – Use jumbled up string of incoherent letters and numbers will be harder to hack.
7. Don’t auto save passwords in your web browser 
8. How often should I change my password? Regularly mix things up every ten-twelve weeks to make it just that little bit harder should login details fall into the wrong hands.

Security and simplicity – Use a password manager

Taking care of your passwords and keeping them safe, while also being able to remember them is a quite a challenge but there is one simple solution to help you manage them.

Use a password manager!

Norton 360 comes with several great features to help you manage your information security and online privacy. One of these is Norton Password Manager.

Norton Password Manager provides the tools you need to generate, store, and manage every password, your credit card information and other credentials online – more securely in your very own encrypted, cloud-based vault.

• Store all your usernames, passwords and more so you don’t have to remember your logins
• Automatically fills in your usernames and passwords for you
• Let’s you access usernames, passwords and other profile information from your Mac^®, PC or mobile device
• Store addresses and other important information to help fill in online forms for fast online checkout

Go beyond password security: Think device security

Using a password manager to help protect your online passwords is one to help keep your online privacy secure but have you thought about the many other ways in which cybercriminals can access your information?

It’s not just viruses infecting your desktop PC anymore, but everchanging cyberthreats like malware, ransomware and spyware that can put your private and financial information on your devices at risk.

With Norton™ 360 you get real-time protection for your PC, Mac^®, iOS or Android™ device against viruses, phishing and other cyberthreats. Plus, Norton Secure VPN adds bank-grade encryption to help secure the information you send and receive on Wi-Fi connections and helps prevent companies from tracking your online activities or locations. Access content on your favourite websites and apps as if from the security of your own home.

As well as Norton Password Manager, Norton 360 comes with Norton Cloud Backup for PC to help store important files ‒ from documents and family photos to financial data ‒ as a preventive measure against the loss of data due to hard drive failures, stolen devices and even ransomware.

Norton SafeCam for PC alerts and helps you block unauthorized access to your webcam. And Norton Parental Control^‡, providing you with easy-to-use tools that allow you to set screen time limits, block unsuitable sites or monitor search terms and activity history to help your kids navigate their connected world more safely.

Norton 360 - Better protection for your life in the connected world.

^‡ Norton Parental Control features are not supported on Mac. Only available with Norton 360 Deluxe and Norton 360 Premium plans.