Once upon a time in the early days of the internet you could log into your online accounts using your dog’s name as a password. Lucky, Fido, Spot, or Buddy were all easy to remember and quick to type. As time progressed websites and apps began requiring you to add a number, add a special character or ensure your password was a certain length. Why? Why are things getting more complicated? Because hackers are getting more sophisticated.

Think about the internet today. You are keeping your personal and financial information online as well as the personal information of your students. As the value of the information we store online increases, the more enticing accounts are to hackers. We’re also sharing more digitally.  Social media has given us the opportunity to share details about our lives like sports teams we cheer for, cars we drive and the names of our dogs! Using these now publicly available pieces of information as passwords are dangerous for you and candy for hackers.

How easy is it for a bot to crack a password? A short password with only lowercase characters can take just milliseconds to crack.  Adding a single special character jumps the time to 30 minutes. When you add a number and a special character, the time jumps to 3 days. However, when you create a 14-character password (or longer) with numbers, letters and special characters the time it takes to hack increases from seconds to centuries!

Wait. How are you supposed to remember a 14-character password with a combination of characters? Skip your favorite things and think of stuff you dislike instead. You’re less likely to post about these things online. Let’s use traffic and Mondays for an example. Once you have your items, swap out some of the letters for numbers and special characters. For example “a”s can become “@” and “o”s can become “0.” This leads you to Tr@fficM0nd@ys- a password that would take a hacker bot centuries to guess.

Other practices for good password hygiene include; Not using the same password for all of your accounts. Never keeping your password on a Post-It on your desk or keyboard. Utilizing multi-factor authentication when available and not using Tr@fficM0nd@ys, because it has been published in this webpage!