Password Security: Staying Secure Online

Have you tried creating a new password recently? It’s a nightmare of trying to jump through hoops to get in every type of letter, number and special character going – but believe it or not, that’s not just companies being awkward and trying to get on your nerves! With advancements in technology, hacking and its ilk are becoming easier for those who choose to partake, so we need to collectively step up our security and make our passwords stronger than ever before. Let’s talk about that…

How secure is your password?

Believe it or not, much of password hacking is actually guesswork. But not guesswork in the sense that you’d know it; it’s done by a computer programme. This programme rapidly runs through various combinations of letters, numbers and special characters as compiled by a dictionary to enable it to “guess” your password. Hence, the more complicated your password, with a greater variety of characters, the more secure it’ll be.

Think about your password now. Chances are it’s some combination of words and numbers that mean something to you, that’s easy for you to remember, and accessible on an every day basis. Great, you can remember your password! But how secure is it? Taking into consideration how the software works, the more common the word you use for your password, the more likely it is that it’ll be “guessed” quickly and easily – ready to make some changes? Sure you are!

Here’s how you can make your password more secure, and keep your digital belongings safe:

• Don’t use your name, kids’ names, birthdays, birth dates, or any other easily guessable information that someone who knows you would be able to figure out!
• Go obscure; if you love something that is a bit off the grid, use that as your password.
• Vary your characters! Use a variety of numbers, letters, special characters and gibberish for the utmost security!
• Take note of this article posted by Tech Insider; they’ll tell you how to make your password super secure, easily remembered, and created from an entire sentence. They know what they’re talking about, so we know what we’ll be doing later on!
• Make sure of a random password generator for something entirely random, full of odd characters and basically unrememberable, let alone unguessable! Try this one out; but remember you’ll need to make a note of it somewhere.

Check out this great comic and others here: http://xkcd.com/936/

Offcloud, your cloud-based download manager

Once your password security is sorted, don’t let the rest of your online safety down! Make sure your cloud storage of choice is secure, reliable, and completely yours, too! This is something Offcloud can offer you, a private and secure network to store all of your entertainment, documents, and any other information that you need on hand wherever you may be!

So, what are the benefits of Offcloud? We give you the opportunity to try out our features without needing to make a financial commitment with our free account; giving you 10GB of storage space and 100 direct download links, allowing you to download instantly from BitTorrent into your cloud storage.

Additionally, there’s no need to download any extra software or applications. Offcloud works right from your browser, wherever you’ve got an Internet connection! Give us a go, there’s no reason not to.