The minimum you can do to protect yourself is to avoid weak passwords. In most cases people do not know what weak passwords are and why are called such. Passwords that can be easily guessed or cracked are called weak passwords. Many security breaches worldwide are often the result of poor password choices. These poor choices were the most fundamental mistakes made by people fifteen or twenty years ago and are still the most common issues in cyber security today.
Avoiding weak passwords is not that hard and it is better than an empty bank account. Knowledge of how different attacking methods work is the best way to learn how to protect yourself and develop better protection techniques. Love your girl but never think to use her name as a password. Never! Internet is full of wordlists that can be used by malicious attackers against you in order to find out your little secret password. Now, think how hard will be for them to get your password if your girlfriend’s name is in the list of most popular names. 0.000000000001sec? Imagine if the password is in the top of the wordlist. If this is true you are finished already or it will happen soon. I am surprised that you still continue reading. What are you waiting – Go and change your password before the illegal hackers do it for you. The following are some of the worst password creating schemes you should completely avoid.
Creating passwords based on proper nouns
Using your pet’s name to create a password is the same thing as using your girlfriend’s name. There are wordlists of pets too!
Creating passwords based on usernames
Sometimes, when you sign up for an account, you create your password based on your username. This is wrong and risky. The first thing everybody does when tries to guess your password is trying your username. A combination of your username and numbers is weak too. For example, admin123. It can be cracked using dictionary attack or brute-force attack.
Creating passwords based on personal information
Nowadays, your personal information can be obtained very easily such as your name, surname, birth date, email, phone number, apartment number and more. Some cyber criminals might have government programs that allow them to check your background. Scary stuff.
Creating passwords based on dictionary words
Creating passwords based on popular book titles, movie titles or phrases in books and movies is also not good. When we like something so much it is easier for us to remember when we need it. This is the reason why many people use their favorite football players for their password. Everything that is popular is on a wordlist. Wordlists are updated and they contain everything that becomes popular such as movies, phrases and names of famous people.
