World Password Day 2024

Established back in 2013 by Intel to raise awareness about the role of strong passwords, the first Thursday of May each year is donned the title of “World Password Day”. Today it is clear that that using strong password is not enough to keep prying eyes from your online accounts, but they remain your first line of defence when going online.

Are Passwords Obsolete?

The strength of passwords relies on secrecy. In an ideal world, we would only need passwords to authenticate our accounts because only ourselves and the service we are using knows our password. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. Most of us have reused or written down a password so we don’t forget it, or had a password compromised through a data breach outside of our control.

While only using passwords on their own may be outdated, they aren’t obsolete just yet. There are so many ways you can protect yourself online and authenticate your accounts, and when you use a combination of traditional passwords along with more modern methods, the login process becomes a lot more secure.

How can I Strengthen my Password?

• Multifactor authentication is your best friend: Most websites and services nowadays allow you to enable MFA. When you switch this on you will be required to add an extra step to your login process. The first factor is entering your password, and once this is verified you will need to enter a single-use code sent to you by SMS or email, which acts as the second factor.
• Keep them unique: Every service and account that uses a password should have a different one, so that if one compromised the rest of your accounts remain secure. Passwords should consist of three random but memorable words, with a combination of numbers and special characters (e.g. BumblebeeSquashLanyard69!). Using passwords this complicated for each service may seem irritating and difficult to remember, but luckily there are apps to make this easier for you.
• Password managers are useful: Yes, it may sound silly to keep all your passwords stored in a single app, but they are one of the most secure ways to safely store your passwords. Your password manager is secured with one complex password you need to remember, and then once authenticated using MFA you can view all your complex stored passwords.

How can I Protect my Hardware?

As of April 29^th manufacturers of smart devices must comply with new legislation that prohibits them from using default passwords on their products. This means that when you buy or are supplied with a device, it cannot use guessable default password, a point of contact must be given for reporting security issues to, and timeline expectations are required to be given to customers to tell them when they can expect hardware updates.

As a customer, this puts some of the cybersecurity responsibility on manufacturers, but this does not mean you are safe and do not need to change your password as soon as you get the device. It is still up to you to protect your hardware; it just means they are a little more secure when you first get them than they were before.

Quick Tips for Password Security

• If you use one of the following most commonly used passwords, change it immediately:
  
  

• Check if your data has been breached if your data has been breached this may include a password tied to another account.
• Check how strong your passwords are using a secure online password strength checker.
• Your email should have the strongest password, once compromised all other accounts are at risk.