Passwords are the key to open the door to your digital world. The security of your personal data, bank accounts, confidential information and your online identity depend to a great extent on the quality and toughness of the passwords you choose.

For this reason it is vital that, as a user, you know how to create and protect strong passwords that are capable of dealing with potential computer attacks.

The recipe for a perfect password

  • Complex. It must have at least 8 characters, including upper case, lower case, and/or symbols. The longer it is, the harder it will be to figure out. Make it even more complicated for hackers by avoiding using words that appear in the dictionary. Mnemonic rules are your best bet for remembering your various passwords.
  • Your dog's name, your wedding date, the classic "12345", the day you were born, will be the first codes that hackers will enter to try to access your account. You must be creative and original. Start with a sentence that only makes sense to you and build a single code by adding special characters.
  • Don't share your passwords with anyone. If you do, you will be giving others the keys to your privacy. A password known by two or more people is no longer a secret.
  • What would happen if you lost a master key to open your home, your vehicle, your mailbox and your office? If you use only one password, you are running the same risk. If the password you use in all your accounts is hacked, your entire virtual world will be in danger. To avoid this, use a different password for each service. Take special care to ensure you use a unique password for your email, as this will be the main way to restore your other passwords if you need to.

Further increase your security

  • Two-step verification. However complex it may be, a password can be stolen in one way or another. For this reason, some services choose to add a double authentication factor to verify the user's identity. With this system, in addition to the password, you must enter a unique code in order to enter. This code is usually sent to your phone via SMS, making it very difficult to access your profiles illegally.
  • Use password managers. It is the safest option to store your passwords. These applications are stored using encryption and protected by a single password, a master key to gain access to all of them. Therefore, before using this type of service, make sure that your password is robust and secure. In addition, it is advisable to back up the keyfile, to avoid losing the stored passwords.
  • Security questions. Although they are used increasingly less, some services enable you to answer a series of security questions to recover your password. These questions are usually so simple that anyone who knowns us or has inquired into our social networks could answer them. Where were your parents born? What was the name of your first pet? For greater security, find an ingenious answer that is easy to remember, but one which only you will know.