Consequences of a Weak Password

So, most of us have the common problem of making a strong password for our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, or any other platform which requires our login credentials. But I have seen most people don’t know how to create a strong password and end up getting it hacked by some anonymous person setting in another part of the world.

The first question that strikes a person while creating a password is It should as simple as possible and easy to remember. And the part I like the most The SAME password is used EVERYWHERE thinking that Who will hack my password? I have not done anything and WHAT IF ANYONE HACKS IT? Their problem starts. If you are using the same password for n number and consider that any website gets hacked with low-security measures, a hacker may apply these passwords on other platforms and all your privacy is at risk.

We think that I will change my password as soon as any mischievous activity happens with my account. OK, on your side you are safe but you just contributed your password to the password list which is generated when any BRUTE FORCE attack is performed. Now, this list is released publicly on the Dark web (Read more about the dark web) and this list is used for further attacks. Now technically speaking, a list of password hashes is also released. But we won’t go that deep.

The purpose of explaining this to you was that one should be aware of how passwords can be misused. How you can prevent these attacks? So, here some tips which I personally follow while making a password:

• Never include your phone number, address, name, mother name, father name, friend name, or even your pet name as there is a technique call Social Engineering Attack which makes it easy for a hacker to gain access to your account.
• Never ever tell your password to anybody even to your girlfriend or boyfriend.
• Use a password manager in case you can’t remember your passwords.

Making a strong password

So, the first step is to think of a sentence that is striking in your mind regarding the platform or anything related to it.

For example, while making a password for Quora, the first thing that comes to my mind is I will not give bias reviews

Now just pick the FIRST LETTER OF EVERY WORD OF THE SENTENCE and club it. In the given example: iwngbr

Now some sites require you to include a numeric character as a compulsion. For that, you can think of a permanent logic. Like you can include random digits of your mobile number. Now I would like to clarify that including mobile number digits won’t affect the strength of the password. It just satisfies the condition for a password to be accepted by the website.

Now to make it more strong you can include special characters like ! # & ” _ * But some sites restrict the usage of these characters.

So, our final password would look like: *i_w_n_g_b_r_34* It looks difficult to remember but with time you will be habitual and will be confident using these passwords.

If you are facing trouble remembering these passwords then you should consider using a password manager. Comment down If you want an article about password manager and their usage. If are still confused about anything, do let me know in the comments and suggest your topics for further articles.

Happy reading!