How safe are YOUR online passwords?
Worried about hacking? Find out how safe your passwords are, and how to avoid common online mistakes.
Did you know that even in 2024, 85% of people, globally, reuse the same passwords across multiple accounts? Poor passwords leave around three in four people open to cybersecurity attacks, which can lead to financial loss and compromised data.
To delve into the issue, the experts at Independent Advisor VPN collaborated with Dr Phil Legg, professor at the University of West England and cybersecurity expert at Independent Advisor, to provide answers to five common cybersecurity and password questions and give tips on how to stay secure online.
1) What is the biggest mistake we make when it comes to cybersecurity?
For the general public, it often comes down to weak passwords. Many users focus on whether a password is guessable, however increasingly, it’s not only whether it’s guessable but whether it can easily be brute forced by automated systems. Therefore, having a long password is the best defence.
I would personally suggest having a passphrase for your most valuable online accounts – perhaps a memorable sentence – so that it is long yet also memorable.
2) How often should we change our passwords?
This largely depends on the risk you believe associated with that service. For many services, using a password manager is fine – it provides a means of having a long and unique password for every site you interact with. If passwords are unique, even if one service is compromised, then your other services are not going to be impacted.
Changing your password every three months may help ensure your access remains secure, however it can sometimes encourage bad behaviours (for example, incrementing a single number within the same password) that are not necessarily as useful as people may believe.
3) How can we keep our social media or email accounts safe from hackers?
Long and strong password, and also using MFA (multi-factor authentication) through your mobile device. Convenience features such as Face ID, and Touch ID, should be used. In particular, these measures not only improve convenience, but also mean that you don’t need to enter passwords whilst in public view.
4) What is the biggest warning sign for malicious content online?
Check the URL. Does it look genuine, or does it look suspicious? Likewise with spam email, does it sound legitimate or false? With regards to security threats such as spam email and phishing attacks, often the best protection is to think slowly and carefully about the content before clicking.
As is often said – if something seems too good to be true it probably is – and so it is important to act with critical thinking when online.
5) What is the biggest myth people believe about cybersecurity?
Password complexity – people think if it has letters, numbers, symbols etc, then it’s secure. The length is far more important than the character variations, and the character variations may just confuse people for passwords that require them to be memorised (for example, the password for your password manager is one you need to know, as storing that in your password manager wouldn’t be that useful!).
