4 Tips To Protect Your Bank Account
Casey Christianson
Information Technology Assistant
Many people know that having a secure password is very important. However, we all have so many passwords that it can be easy to “get lazy” when it comes to password security. Here are 4 tips for improving your banking password to keep you and your finances safe!
Longer Is Better
Even though there is no “perfect length” for a password, it makes sense that longer is better. The more characters that a password contains, the longer it would take to hack into. Try to think of a couple common words that make sense to you and combine them to form a phrase to use as your password.
Example: “logic” + “golden” + “pastry” = logicgoldenpastry (17 characters)
Replace Letters With Numbers and Symbols
The next step is to take your password and replace some of the letters with numbers and symbols that make sense. Also, capitalize the first letter in each word. This helps add complexity to your password, which is crucial. In fact, most sites require you to have at least one number or symbol in your password.
Example: logicgoldenpastry becomes L0g!cG01d3nP@$try
Never Re-Use A Password
The biggest mistake most people make when it comes to password security is using the same password over and over. This is very risky because if one account experiences a breach, the hacker has access to ALL of your accounts. The password you use for your bank account should not be the same as any other password.
Use A Password Manager
Like I mentioned before, each one of us probably has dozens of accounts and passwords to remember. Since it is a bad idea to re-use the same password, it is almost impossible to keep track of our passwords. The best solution for this is to use an app that will keep track of your passwords for you. This is safer than writing them on a piece of paper or in your notes for a couple of reasons. First, you won’t bring the sheet of paper everywhere you go, so it isn’t very convenient. Second, the password managing app is protected by a “master password.” This way, you really only have to remember one strong password, which can lead you to the rest of your passwords. These apps are available on your mobile devices, which is super convenient.
Examples: LastPass, 1Password, Keeper