Never Underestimate the Need for a Secure Password
Over the weekend, a hacker group broke in to the European Space Agency (ESA) and released over eight thousand names, email addresses, and passwords. After analyzing the data, 39 percent of the passwords were determined to be just three characters long (e.g. ‘esa’, ‘123’, etc.). The second largest set of passwords (16%) were eight characters long, and would have easily been cracked by dictionary based rule sets. Passwords such as ‘12345678’, ‘password’, and ‘trustno1’ would be easily cracked as well.
Based on the data released over the breach, the passwords were either poorly constructed or stored in clear text on the servers. Now, you may ask “What can I do to protect myself?” Follow the guidelines below that we recommend and enforce for all of our customers:
Do Not:
– Reuse passwords. Make a different one for each site you use. If you don’t and a hacker gets one password, they get them all
– Use a Dictionary Word. These are the easiest to break.
– Short Passwords. Eight Characters are no longer good enough, as the speed of modern systems and Internet makes these fast to crack
Do:
– Use lengthy passwords. Make your passwords as long as allowable. The more characters in the password, the longer it would take to crack it.
– Use Seperate passwords for different accounts. This prevents a hacker gaining all access to your accounts since one password would not be used multiple times
– Use two form authenication. When available, this provides a second way to authenicate your identity, such as sending a code to your cell phone.
Contact us today and let us assist you with all of your IT Security Needs!
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