The Better Business Bureau is urging you to change your passwords every three months, especially on the top three online accounts you don’t want to get hacked.
That message part of the BBB’s fourth annual National Password Day.
“Passwords are such an integral part of our digital lives, as we use them to help secure important personal and financial information,” said Karla Davis, Manager of Community and Public Relations for BBB serving Mainland BC.
The BBB says 73 per cent of users repeat the same password for multiple online accounts potentially making you a target for cyber criminals. If one of your accounts gets hacked, your other accounts are at risk.
“If there is an account that you have not used in over a year, we encourage you to close it because scammers like dormant and inactive accounts” said Davis.
Some recommendations to create a strong password include:
- Use between 8 – 13 characters
- Use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols
- Use song lyrics, words in another language or unusual movie titles
- Avoid words found in the dictionary
- Avoid using family and pet names
- Avoid using birth dates
- Avoid adding a number or letter to the last password you had.
However, because it can be difficult to remember numerous password combinations, cyber security experts recommend a password manager tool that can safely store and manage strong passwords in an encrypted database.
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