Handling passwords

A password is a combination of numbers and letters and sometimes other punctuation marks that protect your data on the Internet. It is the ‘key’ to your data. It can be the password for your e-mail, an internet subscription, but also for internet banking.

A password ensures that only you can access your data. It is very important to have a secure password. If someone else guesses the password, for example a hacker, he can change your data and everything. You must avoid that. Many sites will assign you a password when you create an account. It is wise to change this afterwards. Sometimes you can choose one yourself. Do that wisely.

Many people don’t like passwords. They therefore choose a very easy one. Think of the name of a pet, child or partner. Or a date of birth or a simple series of numbers. Every year, experts keep track of which passwords are easiest to guess and which passwords people choose most often. In 2011, the worst passwords were words and combinations like ‘password’, ‘123456’, ‘abc123’, ‘11111’ and ‘123123’. It makes sense that people choose these kinds of passwords because they are easy to remember. But it is not safe. A computer criminal who wants to hack into other people’s accounts always tries the commonly used passwords first.

It is tempting to choose the same password for as many websites and services as possible. Then you don’t have to remember so much. However, it is not wise: if one password becomes known, other people can also break into your other accounts. Malicious people sometimes set up fake websites with the sole purpose of tricking you into entering a password. Then they often immediately know your access codes to many more sites.

Most internet programs offer the possibility to save passwords. That seems convenient, but it isn’t always. This means that anyone who visits these sites with your computer will be logged in immediately ‘as you’. Also, many people forget to log out if they have used a service or site. The user after you can then use the site ‘if you’. So always log out. Every site has a button ‘log out’ or ‘log out’ if you are logged in.

Saving a password is only useful if you are the only user of the computer. If more people are using a computer, it is only wise to do this if each user has their own user account.

You will supposedly receive a message from an acquaintance stating that he has seen your photo or profile somewhere. In order to access the profile, you must then enter your password. never go in such an e-mail and certainly do not click on a link in the e-mail. Do inform the sender that a strange e-mail has been sent from her or his e-mail address. It is best for this person to change the password of the e-mail account as soon as possible. This is often still possible. But if the person no longer has access to his/her e-mail, then the provider or the online e-mail service should be contacted as soon as possible to indicate that he/she has been a victim of a hacker.

Or you will receive an email from your bank, with a story about maintenance and security and a link in it that you have to click to log in. If you click on the link in the message, you will go to a site where you have to enter your login name and password for your email. That site looks very similar to your bank’s site, for example, but it is a fake website. If you enter your details, you will pass on your password to computer criminals or dubious sites. They use the password to send emails to people you know, or to send spam messages.

This way of extracting passwords is called ‘phishing’. Don’t fall for it!

A strong password consists of a series of 6 to 8 random letters and numbers, and often you are also required to use punctuation marks. It is recommended that you change your password periodically, for example every quarter.

There are several ways to save passwords on the PC. For example, in a Word file that you protect with a password. To consult the list, you only need to remember one password, instead of all. You can then easily add new passwords to the list.

You can also use a password program. This is a program in which you keep a list of all the passwords you use. You enter them once, choose a master password to protect the program, and from now on you can look them all up in the program. An example of this is LastPass.

It is not easy to handle a password carefully and to surf the internet safely. There are several sites that you can consult.

• on the Mediawijzer site contains useful and interesting information about safe computing.
• The website Safe online at home offers a lot of information.
• Also take a look at the site SafeInternets.nl. Here you test how strong your passwords are.
• The Dutch banks have started a campaign called ‘Fakemail, don’t fall for it’. On the website Safebanking.nl contains all information.