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These days, we’re living in a world that is completely password driven. We depend on passwords to access online banking, online shopping, social media and more. You often hear that you should use strong passwords online, but what makes a password strong? 
 
The following tips can help create a strong and secure password:
 
Don’t Use a Single Password for All Accounts
Creating a unique password is now more important than ever. With hackers and viruses constantly looking for new victims, it’s crucial not to use the same password for all your accounts. If one account gets hacked, all your other accounts will then be vulnerable as well.  
 
Include Numbers, Capital Letters, and Symbols
You can use a $ instead of S or 1 instead of L, or you can include & or %. It becomes difficult to crack passwords that contain symbols and numbers as compared to those which contain only letters. 
 
Don’t Use Dictionary Words
If your password contains words from the dictionary, it can be easily hacked. There’s a popular process among hackers known as “brute force” that uses a dictionary at its back end to guess the words used in dictionaries. Try combining two words together to create a new word or use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.

Use a Password Manager
There are web services, programs and apps available that allow you to create and store all of your passwords for each of your sites. You’ll only have to remember one password to access the program and all of your passwords will be in one place. 
 
Don’t Fall for Phishing Attacks
Be cautious when receiving an email that contains links and asks you to log in, change your password or provide personal information. Even if it seems like it’s from a legitimate website, it could be a phishing scam. With a phishing scam, whatever information you enter goes directly to the hacker so be sure to verify the website is legitimate before entering any sensitive information.

For more tips on online security, watch our CU in a Minute video.