Three “holidays” in a single week’s time? Yep, it must be May! Having already observed both Star Wars Day and Cinco de Mayo, today we turn out attention to World Password Day.
Intel Security is leading the effort to help raise awareness on the importance of password safety and good practices through the use of social media but the company isn’t going at it alone. Asus, Microsoft and the National Cyber Security Alliance are a few of the more than 600 organizations involved in the effort.
Such a day may seem silly to some, but let's face it: there are a lot of people that are terrible with passwords.
As a general guideline, passwords should be at least eight characters in length and contain a mix of numbers, symbols and letters (upper and lower case when applicable). It’s also a good idea to avoid using common names or phrases that people may be able to guess including special dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.), the names of pets or family members, social security numbers and phone numbers.
What’s more, security experts recommend changing your password multiple times per year and enabling two-factor authentication whenever possible. Many have turned to password managers like 1Password and LastPass although again, it’s important to refresh the master password here as well.
Even with the best of password practices, security breaches occur on a regular basis. As such, you’ll want to keep an eye out for such breaches in the news and be sure to use a different password for each account. That way, if someone does get your credentials, they will only have access to a single site or service versus multiple / all of them.
Modern passwords will eventually give way to more secure methods of account protection although what form that'll take has yet to reveal itself.
https://www.techspot.com/news/60608-today-world-password-day-go-change-passwords-.html
