How many online accounts do you have? You’ve started counting them, right? It’s very possible you have at least a few, so that means you also have as many passwords, that you had to create and then remember or write them down.
You may think that your passwords are strong enough to keep the hackers away, but the truth is that we tend to create passwords based on familiar things, like names, birthday dates, or locations, which is not a good thing.
It seems like the combination of capital letters, numbers, or special characters won’t always protect your accounts. You should also try to come up with unpredictable passwords. In any case, at least avoid these 6 passwords.
1. Password
Although this obviously seems like an easy password to hack, there are many people that still use it. Needless to say it’s not a strong password that you should never use.
2. Pet and family names
Never create a password based on your pet’s, child’s, or spouse’s name. Hackers will always try to find out this kind of personal information when trying to hack your accounts.
3. Qwerty
Or the most popular letter combo for passwords. Don’t ever use it, hackers have it on their go-to lists.
4. Significant dates
Maybe it’s easier to remember a password that contains your birthday, anniversary, or the birthday of a loved one, but it’s not worth it, as this kind of personal information can be easily learned by the hackers, so they could easily crack your password.
5. Common phrases
When you are creating a password, don’t use common words or phrases, because obviously hackers will try them too when hacking your accounts.
6. Sequential number combinations
Many people use sequential number combinations as passwords, which unfortunately are not at all strong, as hackers anticipate this trend and try different popular sequential number combinations when trying to hack an account.
Instead, try creating your passwords based on a passphrase, meaning two or more words put together to form a password. You can also use computer generated passphrases. Just make sure you keep them somewhere secure.
