It began with the ATM PIN and passwords have since become prevalent in our daily lives, a critical piece in our IoT way of life. With all of our personal information online, and internet hackers becoming more sophisticated, it’s now more important than ever we protect our information with strong passwords.

Password “strength” is a way to measure its effectiveness. As our computing power increases, so does the bad guys’ technology. They can systematically scan different logins with possible combinations. This technique is called “Brute-Force Attack.” They run the possible combinations by machines hoping to get a match before their fake attempts are blocked by the system.

If you use a short, easy combination, the likelihood of your passcode getting cracked increases much faster. So, what constitutes a good password?

Today we recommend:

- Using 8 to12 digits minimum
- Mixing lowercase and uppercase
- Mixing numbers and special characters

Do not use common words like “password” or “1234” for your password. Make sure you update your passwords once in a while. Hackers are getting smart - they don’t scan the possible password combinations all at once; they may go slowly so the system is less likely to flag them as hackers.

Consider this: It may be a pain to determine a “strong password” and try to remember it, but how much more painful and inconvenient would it be if your information was hacked? Stay ahead of the hackers and protect your identity and accounts with passwords they can’t crack!