Password Awareness.

It's World Password Day today, so I thought I would give a few tips on Password awareness and what you can do to help protect your passwords from being breached.

Here are some stats for you.

• 45% percent of people haven't changed their passwords in the last *gasp* 12 months! - Last Pass

• This one is going to blow your mind, 92% of passwords contain information that is accessible to anyone, YES, you read that correctly! - Last Pass

• This one is not all that surprising to me. 85% of breaches involve the human element. - Last Pass

• 60% of people use passwords between 9-15 characters or less. - Bitwarden

• 8 in 10 Americans reuse passwords across multiple sites. That's 85% percent of Americans!! -Bitwarden

Ways to Protect yourself and your passwords.

• The first thing you should do is have unique passwords, DO NOT reuse passwords for multiple accounts.

• STOP saving your passwords in your web browsers!

• Use a Password Manager. A password manager is a lot like the vault at the bank, you have to have a key to access your safety deposit box that is stored in the vault. The Password manager has a master key that then lets you access all of your securely stored passwords.

• Consider using a password generator if you have a hard time coming up with passwords.

• Use passwords that are between 16-25 characters in length and make sure it has numbers, letters, and special characters. I know you are rolling your eyes at me right now, but I am being serious the longer your password is, the harder it will be to crack. For Instance, if I use the password MyD0g!sAw3S0m3s@uc3@27 it would take 1septillion years to crack! You can check your passwords to see how easy they are to crack.

• Use 2FA whenever you can. I know that it takes an extra couple of minutes but it's worth it and makes it harder for threat actors to steal your information.

• Have good virus and malware protection.

• If you are traveling and using free public wifi use a VPN.

Most importantly be mindful.

Use self-awareness and be mindful of links you get in text messages and emails telling you to "click here to change your password" Always go directly to the website to change your password or security questions.

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