How to Keep Your Password Unexposed [Informative Guide]

A password is a string of characters used to authenticate and gain access to a resource, such as a website or an email account.

Without this string of characters, you won’t have access to the resource.

Considering that, it’s important to take extra caution and keep your password unexposed. 

It’s a good idea to ensure that your passwords are unexposed. What are the steps in keeping your passwords unexposed? This guide will answer that question and more.

Creating a Strong Password

A strong password doesn’t only refer to how hard it is for others to guess. It also refers to how secure it is against hackers and other malicious parties.

The best passwords use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.

While it may seem that using long strings of numbers would be more secure, this actually isn’t the case.

Hackers and malicious parties can use special tools or software to crack passwords that use only letters and numbers.

For example, if you create a password of “password123”, a hacker can crack it using a brute-force attack. In this type of attack, the hacker tries to guess as many passwords as possible.

However, if you create a password that includes uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols, it’s much more difficult for a hacker to crack.

If your password is 6 characters long, a hacker would have to try 6^6 different combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols.

Protecting Your Password

Any password you use on the Internet should be protected, and this starts with a strong password.

A password should be at least 16 characters long, and it should be a mix of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. You should also make sure your password isn’t simple, like “password” or “123456.”

Your password should also not be predictable. This includes using similar or related words or phrases, using personal information like your birthday or anniversary, or reusing the same password across multiple accounts.

As a final note, you should use a different password for every site. These passwords should be completely unrelated, so it’s difficult to guess one password from another.

Avoiding Password Sharing

Sharing your password is a bad idea. With a password, you’re giving someone access to your personal accounts, and you want them to use it appropriately.

But you don’t want your password to be exposed.

If you have a friend, colleague, or family member who you trust with this information, you should let them know what you’re protecting. If they’re trustworthy, they’ll make sure no one else sees your sensitive data.

You can also assign a password to your accounts that you give to friends. Set a password that’s easy to remember, but hard to guess. And if your friend is trustworthy, they’ll use it appropriately.

You can also avoid sharing your passwords while you’re visiting a site. When you’re logging into a website, you don’t have to enter a password. Instead, you usually only have to enter your username or email address.

And many sites also let you add a temporary password to your account. This usually expires after a few minutes or, in rare instances, a few hours.

Utilizing Password Managers

Password managers are an excellent tool for preventing password sharing and information exposure.

Password managers allow you to automate the creation of complex, hard-to-crack passwords. Besides creating strong passwords, they also store passwords securely.

Password managers also allow you to automatically log into your accounts, which is a helpful feature if you’re the type of person who often leaves their computer running unattended.

You can even use password managers to auto-fill usernames and passwords while you’re browsing the Web. So, instead of having to remember your passwords, you only need to remember the passwords to your password manager.

A few popular password managers include Dashlane, LastPass, and KeePass.

Changes Passwords Frequently

To keep your credentials secure, you should change your password frequently. This will keep your account safe from brute force attacks, which involve trying all possible passwords until one works.

There’s no set schedule for password changes, but experts recommend changing your password every 30 to 90 days. Moreover, changing your passwords frequently will make it more difficult for hackers to crack your credentials.

Using these tools, you can generate random passwords, store them safely, and access them across all your devices.

Storing Passwords Safely

It’s not only important to protect passwords from falling into the wrong hands; it’s also important to keep them safe when storing them.

If you have a strong password, there’s a good chance that someday a hacker will gain access to it. And when that happens, your personal information will be compromised.

Plus, once a hacker has your password, they can log in to any account you have that uses that password.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you should immediately change your passwords. But, it does mean that you should regularly change any passwords that you share with other users.

You could do this by sending an email to each of your users, letting them know that their account has been compromised. Then, they’ll need to change their password.

You could also do this by changing the passwords yourself.

Either way, it’s important to periodically change your passwords. And, if a hacker does gain access to your passwords, you should change them as soon as possible.

Using the Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor authentication (2FA) is an additional layer of security that increases your online account security. By requiring a second piece of information, 2FA can prevent stolen credentials from being hacked and used.

The most basic 2FA requires a user to enter a username and a password. This type of authentication is often referred to as “login security.”

To defeat this type of password protection, a hacker would need both the user’s login credentials and the hacker’s login credentials.

As the password is the most commonly used piece of information, an attacker would need to obtain a user’s login credentials first. The hacker would then need to log in to the attacker’s account with the same user credentials.

Once the attacker has the attacker’s login credentials, the attacker can use them to break into the target’s account.

FAQ

We hope this guides was off assistance for how to keep your password unexposed.