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The Lion King | 37
Protecting your
password
LK Gadgets
I
n today’s technology driven world, with quite a
volume of personal and business transactions
done on the ‘go’ through mobile phones and
the internet, you must always be conscious of
the inherent risks of fraud and identity theft and
continually protect yourself from undesirable
exposure.
It is therefore crucial to know how to protect your
login credentials such as user id and password.
Here are helpful tips for securing your password:
1. Avoid weak passwords that can be easily
guessed. The following are instances of weak
passwords that must be avoided:
• Recognizable words, such as, proper names,
dictionary words, etc.
• Having a password that is the same as your
username
• Sequences such as 12345, abcde, and 123abc.
• Your birthday or the birthday of someone close
to you or anniversary date, etc.
2. Do not write down your password. Never store
your password on paper, your mail programs or
web browsers; it is safer to memorize it.
3. Do not share your password with someone else.
If you have done that already, change your
password immediately.
4. When changing passwords, do not “recycle”
one you have used before.
5. Change your password the moment you suspect
it has been compromised.
6. Make your password at least eight characters
long mixing letters with numbers. The longer, the
better.
7. Your password should be easy to remember but
difficult to guess.
*You can create a strong password using a
combination of the following guidelines:
• Mix capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and
use punctuation.
• Create passwords that are over 8 characters
long.
• Use the first letters from a phrase or sentence
that you can remember.
• Substitute numbers, misspellings, and
punctuation into phrase and sentence based
passwords.
Follow these steps to create a strong password
using the recommendations above:
Step 1:
Pick a phrase: “A prophet is not recognized
in his own land”.
Step 2:
Use all of the first letters: apinrihol
Step 3:
Capitalize every other letter: ApInRiHoL
Step 4:
Substitute alphabets with numbers:
Ap1nRiH0L
Step 5:
Add punctuation and your new strong
password is created: Ap1nR!H0L
Remember, your password is your identity; protect
it. NEVER disclose your password to anyone for any
reason! Your, Bank shall never ask you to disclose
your password. Report all emails asking for your
password as phishing emails and never reply or
click the links in these emails!
By nonso nduanya
*Ref: www.emailquestions.com/email-articles/97-why-you-need-strong-passwords-protect-them