Column: How to create a safe and secure password online - advice from a family-run business in Banbury

With a huge amount of people now working from home due to pandemic, we are now becoming much more reliant on our home computers. As part of a regular column, Quickfix Computers - a local, family-run business founded in 2008, with shops in Banbury and Redditch - will be offering advice to help us get through our battles of man against machine. This week, they look at how to create a safe and secure password.

How to.. Create a safe and secure password

The lockdown has meant people have spent more time online and with this, more online accounts have been created which has left more people vulnerable to being hacked.

A survey has found millions of British people are using their pets’ names as passwords for their online activity. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) notes that 15% population use their pets’ names, 14% use family names and 13% use a notable date. Along with 6% of people setting ‘Password’ as their password!! The NCSC has urged people to chose random passwords that cannot be associated with any part of their life that makes them an easy target for hackers.

We are a nation of animal lovers but you become an easy target with this as your password, especially as many of us share our pets on social media and hackers are able to see this.

Using a basic password is bad enough, but using the same password for everything is even more dangerous. If you’ve used your password for Instagram and Spotify, you could find both accounts compromised as hackers use trial and error on multiple accounts you could own. Having a unique password is a great first step but you also need to ensure that each site you use has a different one

created, so that if one password does ever end up compromised, you aren’t giving them access to

your whole digital database.

When choosing a password, you should disconnect it from you as much as possible. For example, you could look around you and chose 3 random words hand pen purple. You could then add a capital in the middle handPenpurple. To secure it even more add a special character handPenpurple! To finalise it why not add a number handPenpurple!7

1. Don’t use any personal names or dates e.g., children, pets, wedding date

2. Use three random, unconnected words

3. Include a special character such as exclamation mark or hash

4. Have a capital letter somewhere in the sentence

5. Including a random number secures it further

6. Repeat this for every online account you use