Overcoming the Challenge of Protecting Your Accounts With Strong Passwords

Securing your online accounts with complex passwords. How hard can it be?

Those of you who know that a three-and-a-half-inch floppy disk isn't, in fact, a 3-D printed copy of the Save icon might also remember the times when connecting to the Internet meant that your mom couldn't use the landline. Managing passwords was easy in those days.

There weren't that many people on the Internet (relatively speaking), and the ones that had the intention of doing damage through the newfangled global network of computers were after high-value targets – organizations with lots of money and resources. Things have changed now.

The people who (if stock images are to be believed) tend to wear hoodies and balaclavas when they're in front of their computers have quite a few more hacking opportunities, and they're not shying away from taking them. And it's no longer just about large organizations sitting on piles of cash, either. You, the regular user, are now a high-value target as well.

Just how important are your passwords?

Because you do so many things on the Internet, there's a lot of information about you that can be used in a variety of nefarious ways. Most of it is protected by passwords.

Sure, some of that data is more important than the rest. Your profile on an online messaging board will likely contain little more than a nickname, your email, and maybe a date of birth. You might be thinking that getting an account like this compromised isn't such a big deal, but let's analyze the potential repercussions more closely.

If hackers break into your online forum account, they can use it for spreading malware to the other members of your online community. And since they have your email, they can send malicious or phishing emails to you.

If you use the same password for your email, the hackers can reset the rest of your passwords and leave you locked out of your accounts. If the discussion board password is used at your online banking platform, the financial damage could be immeasurable.

The bottom line is this: every single one of your accounts must have a password that's both strong and unique.

Is creating so many strong, unique passwords really possible?

It is. There's a myth that humans simply can not create strong passwords. This is not strictly true. Using the right strategy, creating complex passwords is actually not that difficult. Just put some unrelated words together and then do some modifications to them to make your long passphrase impossible to guess. Alternatively, you can just bash the keyboard for a few seconds, and if you don't forget to press the Shift button every now and again, what will come from under your fingertips will probably be a strong password. And since you're randomly pressing buttons, you're unlikely to create the same exact password for two different accounts.

So, the old "if there's a will, there's a way" proverb applies nicely to the business of creating complex passwords. Sadly, when it comes to remembering these passwords, it's a bit of a different story.

You can probably remember a few long, hard-to-guess passwords. You might even be able to memorize ten such passwords if you try very hard. Unfortunately, nowadays, ten strong passwords aren't enough. You probably have dozens, if not hundreds, of online accounts, the importance of which shouldn't be underestimated. Remembering all these strong and random passwords is quite simply outside the realm of what the human brain can do.

It needs some help which can come in the form of Cyclonis Password Manager. With it, you can feel free to forget your passwords. This might sound a bit bizarre, but it's true. Cyclonis Password Manager will put your login credentials in your vault, and you'll be able to access them with your master password – the only password you'll need to remember. The Password Analyzer will tell you if some of your passwords aren't strong or unique, and with the password generator, you won't even need to think of new ones. It will do it for you. Additional features like the browser extension and the ability to save personal and payment information will change the way you do your everyday tasks online, and with the option to sync your data across your devices, you'll have access to it whenever and wherever you need it.

Sticking to the best password practices isn't an easy task if you're tackling it on your own. With the right tools, however, it can be done. And Cyclonis Password Manager's goal is to give you these tools.