If you did not notice this information during July, then believe that the database of stolen passwords has grown by 1.5 billion more, so it currently contains almost 10 billion unique passwords, among which yours is probably included. These are passwords that have been used in the last 3 years, so it can be assumed that a large part of them are functional. Even in the future, password leaks will not be avoided, so we must focus on how to make such cyber theft as difficult as possible for attackers. Here are our recommendations.
Multi-factor authentication
If possible, at least set up two-factor authentication (2FA), this is the best way to protect yourself from theft of your digital identity. Banking houses and other institutions or applications have already adopted this method of verification, or they require it. A number of other applications allow it, so feel free to protect yourself wherever possible.
Password manager
Feel free to use a password manager with which you can generate and store very strong passwords for all your logins. There is no need to remember passwords for individual applications or e-shops, the administrator always logs you in automatically. In addition, it usually stores passwords in an encrypted database, making it difficult for hackers to access your passwords if they were to gain access to the database itself. Web browsers also offer integrated password managers, we recommend a separate application (also available on a mobile phone) such as KeePass or Keeper (you can find many more when you search). Finally, all that remains is to create a secure password to access the password manager.
Secure password
To choose the main password, we recommend using a password generator (often already included in the password manager), where you can directly set the required strength of the password, which consists of the type of characters used and its length. Ideally, your password should be a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols, together forming an unpredictable string of characters that does not resemble any word. You read somewhere that the sufficient length is 10 characters, we recommend at least 15, one of our colleagues says that 27 characters is ideal, because then even a quantum computer will not crack your password 😊
We'll be back next week...
Your Safee team