5 Ways of Securing Your Data with a Foolproof Password System

It’s been two decades and counting since the 1985’ classic Back to the Future has predicted a world powered by drones and hover boards. Although still utterly humane, the society we live in is rapidly becoming semi-robotized, with most of our children already declaring themselves as digitally native. As we witness more of the insanely futuristic predictions coming to life, the modern civilization is starting to feel a bit too comfortable with its computerized environments.

Yet, the threats are the same as always, just as our sensitive data is still being protected by flawed passwords. And if you think about it, in a world where Facebook knows exactly where you’ve been and where you’re heading, the need for a safer gatekeeper is paramount. Here’s our 5 tips on how to improve your password system and keep your valuable files intact.

1. Never Discard The Symbols

Although boring, the password directives that almost every website offers are actually for our own sake. It’s pretty clear that a mixture of letters, numbers and other symbols makes the password much harder to break down than a simple pattern that is easily guessed. If you make your favorite and most memorable phrase into an acronym, print it out and keep it somewhere visible, to remind you of your actual password, it will probably take a Sherlock to figure it out.

2. Take a Longer Way Around  

There are many ways of keeping your finances, credit information and confidential data secure and safe. It goes without saying that an individual should always keep his or her computer physically out of the strangers’ reach, and that a company should always employ a professional IT team to additionally cover its data; still, the number of online services are equally diligent in recognizing a cyber security problem and in offering a viable solution. For that reason, be sure not to entrust your sensitive information to any online service that doesn’t include a multifactor identification option as an additional step between entering a password and accessing the account. A simple code sent to your phone number might make your online account simply inaccessible to everyone but you.

3. Leave Your Prints All Over It

One of the most frequent problems with having a lot of online accounts is having to remember a password for all of them. While there is a pretty convenient life hack solution for this problem (and we’ll talk more about it in the next paragraph), IT companies around the world are embracing another method of entering your devices. As an option that frees you of memorizing all of your passwords, biometrics allows you to access your smartphone, tablet and laptop with only a fingerprint. And, since you’re the only one with that exact unique ID code, it seems like the most secure way of protecting your data so far.

4. Play With Word Formation

 

The aforementioned problem is not, under any circumstances, an excuse for using the same exact password for each of your accounts. The risk of exposing your Facebook password for others is pretty high, and if you use the same one for shielding your finance information as well, you’re in bigger jeopardy than you might think. If creating dozens of different passwords is not something you want to be bothered with, a simple, but much safer solution is to use one basic phrase and make up a plenty of variants for specific sites. For instance, you can combine your base password with a letter from the site’s name, and thereby modify it in a much more secure way.

5. Manage Your Passwords

Or, simply use a password manager. These handy apps are available for almost every type of devices and the best of them actually merge password information from different accounts. Password managers like Norton, Dashlane, LastPass and LogMeOnce all work in a similar fashion – by entering one password to unlock the app or by leaving a fingerprint to gain access, you’re keeping all of your different account entries under one highly protected and almost impossible to lose key.

For both individuals and companies, protection of sensitive data is of the utmost importance. And since it all starts with a password, learning to use this security option in the best possible way is a leverage that will certainly bring you a much needed peace of mind.

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