According to Google, strong passwords enable users to keep their personal information safe, protect emails, files while preventing others from accessing your account. Password security is a struggle for many Americans, as stated in a recent Ipsos report, “an overwhelming majority (84%) say that they are at least somewhat concerned about the safety and privacy of the personal data that they provide on the internet.”

Although password theft is a common occurence, there are only few solutions, thus making a secure password early on will be more helpful. Depending on what the password was for, one can enable two factor authentification to verfiy their identity and regain their account or notify the authorities or officals of Amazon, Instagram, etc. It is always a good idea to update your security software and run security scans after you have been attacked so that you can delete malware. It is always prefered to turn on automatic updates to ensure your software is always updated. However, even updating isn't an easy task in cybersecurity, a lot of viruses like to hide as updates so be careful when you update! When running security scans make sure it is by a well-known and reputable company in cybersecurity. To prevent password attacks it is crucial that you think before you click. According to the CISA, more than 90% of successful cyber attacks start with pishing, if a link looks suspicious don't click it, it could create unreversable damage.

When passwords are created and stored into a database, they aren’t stored in plaintext, or in their original form; instead, they’re encrypted! To encrypt passwords, we use a variety of ciphers, hashes, salts, one-way functions, and algorithms. RSA and AES encryption, SHA-256 hashes, and one-time pads are just some encryption examples.

What distinguishes the password “iloveyou” from “appl3!src00L11l!”? Well, “iloveyou” is a password that is a lot easier to crack, or in other words, a lot easier to guess or break, than “appl3!src00L11l!”! Like stated in the information section, passwords like “iloveyou” can easily be brute forced in a method called dictionary attacks. To make a password more secure, we should aim to avoid common words, incorporate a mixture of letters, symbols, and numbers, and maximize password length. The longer and more complex a password is, the more passwords the hacker has to try, the more time it’ll take for hackers to crack! Don’t use a common password! Passwords such as abcd, password, and 123456 can be easily guessed by attackers and defeat the purpose of having a password. Keyboard patterns, such as qwerty, asdfg, and zxcvb, can be similarly guessed easily. Don’t follow the minimum password requirements!! Experts suggest that instead of using eight characters, you use 12 or more character, the more characters the better as long as you rememeber it. Avoid using personal information that others may know or can find easily on social media. This includes, birthdays, names/intials, addresses, etc. Length is the most important factor. There are around 100 possible keys on a standard QWERTY keyboard. A hacker, then, would have to try 1005 combinations to crack a 5 character long password. By just doubling the length, the hacker would have to try 1005 more combinations. So, prioritize length above all!