BankDirect Fraud Prevention
Creating a Strong Password - Don't Let a Hacker Steal Your
Information
The responsibility of selecting a strong password, one that is hard to guess,
generally falls to each individual.
For example, if you choose a one-character password, any uppercase letter,
lowercase letter or digit, there would be 62 possible passwords. Clearly, a
would-be hacker could try all 62 possibilities very quickly.
You could make your password harder to guess by using more characters. Using the
same possible characters, there are 3844 possible two-character passwords and
218,340,105,584,896 (about 218 trillion) 8-character passwords. Even if a
would-be hacker could try out 5000 eight-character passwords per second, it
would take, on average, 700 years for them to guess your 8-character password.
Clearly, longer passwords are more secure than shorter ones!
It's important to note that even though a password is long, it does not
necessarily mean it is secure. For example, you might choose a long password
based on something you know - like your spouse's name, child's name or some
dictionary word. If you do this, then instead of trying 218 trillion passwords,
this hacker could probably guess your password after a few thousand attempts.
If they use a computer program to guess passwords, this will only take them a
few minutes.
To decrease the chances of anyone ever guessing your password, you must select a
hard-to-guess or strong password. A strong password must:
-
Be as long as possible (never shorter than 6 characters, 8 or more characters
is strongly recommended)
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Include mixed-case letters, if possible
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Include digits and punctuation marks, if possible
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Not be based on any personal information
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Not be based on any dictionary word, in any language
No matter how many strength rules you use, though, the persistent hacker will
eventually guess your password given enough time. Thus, you must also:
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Change your password regularly (ideally once a month) in order to limit the
amount of time available for hackers to guess it
-
Do not use the same password twice
Never divulge your password to anyone. There are numerous ruses out there
designed to get you to give a would-be hacker your password. Don't do it!