The First Thursday in May.

They call it a celebration, but in reality its here to highlight and remind everyone of the importance of having strong password.

Years ago, it was all about 8 characters, recently complexity. The advice coming out of the US is all about length, phrases. The length of time it takes to crack a longer password increases exponentially.

If you can think of a sentence, or a group of words, at least 16 characters in length, thats an ideal start for your security.

We also advise on, in our audit we do for new customers, where its possible, having multi-factor authentication on your accounts. A good example of this is Office365 and its email services. Even if someone gets hold of my password, its quite useless on its own as as soon as someone uses it, it pops up on my phone to say do I want to allow the access ? Er……no……..

Its a day to use to review your current password habits and see if there is room for improvement. They are critical gatekeepers to our digital assets for anything from social media right through to banking services.

Layers

Strong

There are a number of layers of defence available to you. The first layer is the traditional password, make it strong and long to make it count.

Multifactor

Various types are available, the first of which is the traditional fingerprint, or more recently FaceID, on your phone. This can be used for access to applications on your phone, such as banking, as well.

Next there is the one time use code. Either sent to your phone in an app or by SMS, making sure its something you have as well as something you know (your password) to prove your identity.

Also we see tokens in use, USB, to additionally prove its yourself needing access.

Summary

Food for thought

• Review your password strengths today, are they strong enough, are they easily guessable ?
• Use a password safe – we recommend 1Password – so you dont have to remember the long arduous passwords and keep them secure
• Use multifactor authentication where you can
• Check out Google Password Checkup to make sure your passwords aren’t hacked or on the Internet
• Try not to reuse passwords, if you do, make them secure by length