Passwords and pins should not be written down on a piece of paper and kept in the wallet along with the cards: if the wallet is stolen, the thief can withdraw all the money.
Moreover, you can’t write a pin on a card: it’s tantamount to signing a verdict on your financial execution.
Information security specialists recommend creating different passwords for each site.
And it shouldn’t be a password made up of a simple word, date, or qwerty123.
It’s hard to remember all of these things, but it’s real. Here are a few ideas on how to do it.
Remembering a pin code by card data
Take a two-digit number meaningful to you, for example, 42. This will be the first two digits of the pin code. And take the second two digits from the card: for example, the fourth and second from the end of the number. Each card will have a different pin code that is easy to remember.
Come up with an algorithm for the password
Come up with a long phrase that you can remember. For example VivaLaFrance. After it you can write the first letters of the site where you are registering and the numbers at the end. Each site has a unique password that is hard to crack.
Use hand memory
Open the call bar on your smartphone and start typing the right sequence of numbers. Practice from time to time, and when it’s time to remember, let your fingers dial the right number on their own.
Turn numbers into stories
Our brains are better at remembering stories than numbers. For example, “four twos got a deuce three times” is easy to repeat in your head and assemble the key elements of a pin – 4232. This method can be used for phone numbers as well.
Study sequences of numbers
You can take the Fibonacci numbers or the digits of the number Pi after the decimal point. Memorize the beginning of the sequence once and take from it as many digits as you need for a pin code or password.
Fibonacci numbers are elements of a numerical sequence.
Use a calculator
Security experts recommend not using birthdates as passwords. A calculator will help: multiply the digits from a memorable date by other memorable digits and you will get a new secure pin code or password.
How to create a secure password?
Password From email, social networks, and online banking.
Let’s say a hacker found your main email password. Here’s what he can do:
- Change your passwords to all your social media accounts. Ask all your friends for money on your behalf.
- Change your iCloud or Google Play password. Then steal your money or lock your smartphone.
- Examine your correspondence, from which the hacker is sure to get your passport information and card number. From social networks, he can easily get your mother’s last name.
- Knowing your passport information and card number, the hacker will change the password to the online bank, change the contact phone number and be able to freely dispose of all your money.
- If a hacker gets a scan of your passport in the mail, he can take a loan in your name from an unscrupulous credit organization and collectors will come to you.
And all this is because of a single unreliable email password. This article will tell you what passwords are unreliable and how to make them secure.
Unreliable: words and number sequences
For mail, bank, and social networks, you can’t use any combination of:
- simple dictionary words: sexy, love, hello, password;
- consecutive digits: 1234, 123456789, 9876543210;
- date of birth: 21041988, 2104;
- any year: 2015, 2010, 1988;
- my name: mike;
- names of your relatives and pets: lucy, daddy, stepik;
- the name of the service where you register: google.
Combinations of these words will give unreliable passwords, which on a normal computer are picked in minutes or hours:
- sex – 5 seconds;
- love1999 – 3 minutes;
- password1234567890 – 3 minutes;
- sex2010 – 10 minutes;
- mail987654321 – 2 hours;
- peter1 – 3 hours.
Reliable: numbers, letters, punctuation marks
A good password consists of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.
For example:
xJ4521&b-v01.8r^5h
hs#zlkAc~6bifL0xT
{|%RJbn7Ar~T
Good passwords are made up by cats when they walk on the keyboard:
- s555,.LY/g111—5233
- GBz.vUUJDF>975udsgrz.34
- #$:*(Tg;t9495htgbz114
If you just throw your hands on the keyboard a few times, you get a strong password:
- p${ghJDg5s56
- 4ghu;KSsl@cnQdi4
- vd.Lbh.j4uejd$
Such passwords are impossible to guess with a dictionary, and it will take you months or years to try them again – during that time you’ll have time to change your password, your mailbox, and your country of residence.
How to make up and remember a strong password?
Each person has his or her own technique for remembering a password. If you don’t have one, try this one:
- Take a simple phrase that you’re sure to remember. For example, “lasagna with mushrooms.” Write it: lasagna with mushrooms.
- Imagine you are saying the phrase with an accent. How would you write it then? For example, in Italian: “lasagne ai funghi”.
- Replace the spaces with a dash, dot, comma, or something worse: lasagne.ai-funghi.
- Replace some letters with numbers – but so that you remember what you changed. For example, a for @, i for 1: l@s@gne.@i-funghi.
- A password is best remembered when you enter it often. If you just made up a password, turn off the “remember me” checkbox in email or social media, and you’ll have to enter it every day. That way your hands will learn to enter it automatically. After a week, you can turn “Remember me” back on.
How do I write down passwords?
Security experts advise against writing down passwords in plain sight, even if you keep them in a safe. If you need to write down a password, do it in a way that only you know how to read it.
Take an old day planner, open it somewhere in the middle or near the end, and write in the margins in pencil “lasagna with mushrooms, Italian, by mail, 3 servings.” This note will help you remember how you changed the original phrase, and it will be unclear to outsiders how to get your password from it.
Never keep passwords on post-its on your monitor. Do not carry them in your wallet. Don’t write them down in the notes on your phone.
How can I keep my password secret?
Even with a strong password, you can be hacked: for example, if someone spotted you entering your password or if the computer you use to access your email has spyware on it. How to protect yourself from such cases:
- Don’t use the same password in email, banking, social media, and messengers. Change at least one-third of your password so that it is difficult to find.
- Turn on two-factor authentication everywhere you can. Then, even if your password falls into the hands of fraudsters, they will need your phone number to access your mail or bank.
- Try not to enter your passwords on other people’s computers, especially if the computer is shared: at an internet cafe or library. You do not know what kind of spyware may be installed on them.
- Password-protect your home wireless network.
- If you suspect that your password may have leaked to intruders, change it in a secure environment and from a secure device. For example, from a tablet at home.
- Keep your phone with you, and if your SIM card stops working, urgently call the operator and change it in a mobile phone shop. A dead SIM card could mean that someone has made a duplicate.
Some tips on creating a secure password
Different passwords on different sites
Even the most complex password can be cracked, if not by brute force, then by deception – for example, by giving you a phishing (fake, forged) page, which you tell yourself both your login and your password.
After that, the cracker or intruder will be able to access all your other services using the same password, which is why it is recommended to use different passwords on different sites – if one password is cracked on one site it may not work on the other. Unfortunately, most users use one “universal” password.
How to remember one password, as we learned above, but how to remember different passwords on different sites?
Very simple – at the end, beginning, or inside the main password add a few letters that you associate with the service, for example, Google – g, Facebook – f, Skype – sk or s, etc. Simple, secure and you don’t need to remember anything extra.
Periodic change of passwords
The older the passwords, the more likely they are to be leaked (by Trojans, phishing scams, or simple user inattention), which is why Microsoft recommends changing them periodically.
All this is certainly correct, but they don’t say how to remember new passwords when you’re used to the old ones.
Technically, it will be a new password, which will be as difficult to pick as the previous one, and there is no need to remember it each time.
According to recent research, the total annual financial losses from stolen passwords are roughly equal to the cost of changing them once a year for all users, so changing them more often makes no sense.
How to remember complex passwords reliably?
The human memory has a peculiarity of forgetting things, including things you should never forget, such as pin codes of bank cards, your mother-in-law’s date of birth, and, naturally, passwords.
According to a well-known law forgetfulness manifests itself selectively and usually at a time when it is least needed, so for all the comparative ease of remembering the passwords created above, it still would not hurt to write them down.
But what if somebody accidentally finds a secret notebook with passwords or takes it on purpose? In this case, it is useful to write them down in a modified form, standard for all your passwords.
For example, before or after each real password, write down an unbroken set of random symbols or a number of standard lengths.
If a password is forgotten, just find a notepad, subtract the first or last characters and you get the real password. If someone else tries to enter the password, he is unlikely to guess such a little trick.
Important: almost all serious sites have the ability to restore the password by phone, so do not forget to specify it in the registration data. It’s not recommended to indicate your phone number on dubious and entertaining sites.
What to do if the password is still forgotten or cracked?
The main thing is not to panic, because usually you only risk losing access for a while to a couple of dozens of your photos and how many unread messages about almost nothing.
Next, you need to try to restore the password by any available method (restore by a secret question, with the phone, contacting technical support) – something will usually work, then go to a temporary password and immediately change to a more complex one.
And make conclusions for the future, because sometimes losing or breaking a password is equal to losing your wallet, passport, and driver’s license at the same time, so be careful when you create them and the choice of places where they are stored.
