You Should Never Make These Dangerous Password Mistakes, According To Security Experts

One of the best ways to protect yourself from hackers is by making sure your passwords are iron-clad. Hackers make a living out of figuring out passwords, and it won’t be hard to crack yours if you aren’t doing everything you can to keep them secure. Cybersecurity and Digital Privacy Expert Sam Dawson at ProPrivacy spoke to SHEFinds.com about the dangerous password mistakes you should never make. The sooner you ban these from your online life, the safer your accounts will be.

Recycling the same old passwords is by far the biggest cause of identity theft, according to Dawson. “When you reuse passwords, your security is only as strong as the weakest service you use it for,” Dawson says. “All it takes is one website that doesn’t encrypt your passwords properly to be hacked, and suddenly that hacker has the master key to your whole internet life. This may have even happened to you already. Using haveIbeenpwned, you can check through thousands of leaked databases to see if one of your passwords is out on the net for anyone to see.”

In a nutshell: don’t use your birth year as your pin. “Don’t use the name of your favorite pet that you post about on Facebook as your Facebook password,” Dawson advises. “Don’t use your middle name typed in ‘l33t sp34k’ if you work in the tech industry. Hackers spend all day researching human psychology and password trends. The more of your life you put into your password, the more likely it is someone can spend an obsessive day or two stalking your social media and trying common variations until it works. This is the same for password recovery services that only rely on questions about your life. You’d be surprised how many of you friends know your birth date, where you were born, and your mother’s maiden name.”