*Ding* You just received an alert of a new email. You open the email to find what looks like a legitimate email from Paypal that your credentials (login & password) have been compromised and that you need to act immediately by clicking the link below to change your password to ensure that no one can access your account to steal your personal financial information.
These days you might receive more than one of these alerts a week, so you just dismiss it thinking that it is just another phishing attempt trying to get you to click a bogus link. First off, Great Job for not just clicking any random link that was sent to you, even if the email looks completely normal. However, assuming that the email is just another phishing attempt could come back to bite you if it was in fact legitimate.
We’ve been teaching you not to click on anything or open any attachments unless you know for sure who they came from and were expecting to receive the email in question. We’ve taught you how to easily spot a phishing email, but what happens when the hackers get one past you? If you have a no trust policy, can you trust this email telling you that your credentials have been compromised? It’s a catch 22 at this point. So where does this leave us?
Strong Passwords are essential! Now with that said, strong passwords are not the only saving grace that you need to have in place to stay as protected as possible, but they are the easiest way for you to make it harder for hackers to access your data. The longer and more complicated the password the better. You might be thinking to yourself, well I’m good because my password is 7 characters composed of numbers, letters and symbols.
According to Hive Systems, a password with 6 unique characters can be cracked immediately and 8-character passwords can be cracked within 39 minutes. The most commonly used passwords in 2021 were cracked within 1 second.
Check out this 2022 table made by Hive Systems to determine how long it would take to crack your passwords:
You might say, “How am I supposed to remember a unique 16 character password for every login?” This is when having a password management tool can save you many headaches and help protect you at the same time. Turn Key Solutions uses and recommends LastPass as a convenient tool to safely store all of your credentials. When using LastPass, you only have to remember one unique password. LastPass can store all of your login information safely in one place while helping you create long and unique passwords for every site that you access. Another great feature of most password managers is that they also have the ability to store other essential personal data such as credit card numbers, driver’s licenses, social security numbers and more.
For more helpful information on how to stay cyber safe, check out our other blog articles & YouTube videos:
Tips to protect your finances from cybercriminals
Don’t Get Hooked! Tips for understanding Phishing emails
Original Article by Stephanie Reilly @ Turn Key Solutions, LLC
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