A trip to the mailbox this weekend reminded me of a very important topic.  Long story short, we received a letter from the police department.  They were investigating a case of credit card fraud and our card number had been used.  We had resolved the situation with our bank, months ago, but the shear thought of it all sent my pulse into the double digits and made me wonder if I am protected.  Is there anything more I can do?  How can I protect myself?  What if this happens again?

Identity theft and fraud are very real and, given the current economic climate, are on the rise.  There are many precautions you can take to protect yourself from identity theft and all of them focus on protecting your personal data.  Protection means securing your information behind something, whether it is a wall, a guard or some sort of digital security, like a password.  Due to the nature of our business, we are going to focus on an area we can help you with, passwords.

Honestly, who wants to deal with passwords?  They are an obstacle.  They stand between you and your ability to get something accomplished and they can just be a real pain.  You’ve got ten passwords to remember, different rules for each, and every time you turn around, there is another company or web site asking you to create a new password.  Your first instinct is to “make it easy” and use the same password for everything.  Who hasn’t done that at some point?  Well, today is the day you need to make a change.  Simple, easy to remember passwords are an open door to criminals and they are counting on people to be lazy when it comes to their password security.  You wouldn’t leave your front door secured by a piece of scotch tape, so why do that to your bank account, personal computer or email?

If you had the chance, you would secure your house and family behind a deadbolt and a security system, so now you just need to apply that same thought process to your digital security.  You need a strong password.  A strong password will follow these rules, which we found on Microsoft.com:

• Length – 8 or more characters are the minimum.  14 or more are ideal.
• Complexity – The greater the variety of characters, the better.  Use the entire keyboard.
• Easy to remember, hard to guess – Make it something personal, but change it up with special characters and a little creativity.

Here is an example of how you can change your existing, weak password into something stronger.  Let’s start with something that most people use, the word “password”, and work from there.  That’s right, we know you are doing it!

ORIGINAL: password
LENGTHEN IT: passwordpassword
MAKE IT MORE COMPLEX: pa$$wordPa**w0rd

All we did there was add in 1 capital P, a number in place of a letter and a few special characters.  You just have to remember that it is the word “password” twice, with a few tweaks.  If you can visualize it, you can type it.  After you have typed it a few times, you’ll be surprised that you ever fought the change.   Try it today with something simple and work on changing all of your passwords to something stronger and more secure.

There are a couple additional words of warning that you should know about before making this “global” change to your passwords:

1. Try not to use the same password for everything.  Have a few variations of your password, just in case someone does figure it out.  Then they won’t be able to get into everything.
2. Different web sites/programs have different password rules.  Some don’t allow certain special characters, some don’t allow repeating numbers “111,” some don’t…. There are too many to list.  This is another reason to have several variations.
3. Don’t write your passwords down.  It is difficult to do, but if you store them all on a piece of paper in your wallet or purse and someone steals it, you are in trouble.  If you do have to write it down, just use the paper until you can remember the password(s) then shred that paper and move on.

If you can make these small adjustments today, it could save you and your credit a huge hassle down the road.  Make the switch today and don’t look back.

Pass it on.  Send this article to friends and family using the ShareThis button below.

Tags: Credit Card, Fraud, Passwords, Security, Strong Password

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 9:36 am and is filed under Tips and Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.