Every October, we recognize Cybersecurity Awareness Month. The purpose of this annual event is to help remind everyone to protect themselves online as technology and digital threats evolve.
Passwords have become a common topic in the news and security breaches seem to happen monthly. If your password is stolen, hackers might access your bank account or create extreme havoc on social media pages.
As humans, we create passwords we can remember. We use a combination of birthdays, loved one’s names, or even pets’ names. We use them to protect our bank accounts, social media sites, email, and even our taxes.
The problem with passwords is we need so many of them.
To simplify our lives, we re-use them, and unfortunately, we re-use them everywhere. This means that if your password is compromised in one location, hackers potentially can re-use them in every other place you used them.
Basic Password Rules:
To combat this problem, we need to establish some rules for passwords and to make sure their strength is sufficient. Here are some basic rules everyone should follow:
- Never re-use the same password between work and home.
- Never re-use the same password for financial institutions and social media.
- Never tell anyone your password.
- Change your passwords frequently.
And once you finally select a password, its strength should observe these rules:
- Passwords should be at least 8-12 characters.
- Passwords should contain letters (upper and lower case), numbers, and symbols.
- Contain no dictionary words within the password.
- Should not reuse a previous password.
- Should not contain sequences from a keyboard like ‘qwerty’ or ‘zxcvb’
Farmers State Bank will continue to work with you to make your cyber experience a more secure one.