ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik Shares Password Safety Tips

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Picking a strong password for your web accounts is a critical part of protecting your privacy online. Unfortunately, millions of people worldwide continue to use passwords that are poorly planned and easy to guess. Why is this? Well, I’m not a psychologist, but it seems like people have some kind of “It Can’t Happen To Me” Syndrome. In fact, it’s usually only after an individual has had their account hacked that they think, “Hey, maybe my password shouldn’t have been ‘password’.”

In a recent article for the Austin American-Statesman, ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik, along with CJ Romberger, founder and co-owner of Wildwood Interactive, shared some advice on what into a strong password and why it is important for your online privacy.

From the article:

• The longer your password, the more secure it is. Eight to 10 characters is a good range, Romberger says.

• If a word is in the dictionary, it shouldn’t be part of your password, Fertik and Romberger agree. Hackers can run programs that repeatedly try to log in to your account using words from the dictionary.

• Fertik and Romberger also say to avoid the names of your spouse, child or pet in your passwords. With many of us revealing so many details of our lives on social media, these details are easier than ever for a hacker to figure out.

The availability of this information also makes it easier for hackers to guess your security question and reset your e-mail password.

• Your user name shouldn’t also be part of your password, Romberger says, and Fertik points out that you should also avoid your nicknames or variations on your own name, such as adding an extra letter (“Michaell”).

• So how can you create a secure password that’s still memorable? Come up with a phrase, Romberger says, and use the first letters of each word in your password. For example, “Why has this summer been so hot?” becomes “whtsbsh” in your password. Capitalize every other letter to make the password even stronger.

• Another tip from Romberger is to use password combos that are easy to type but don’t mean anything. Avoid something like “qwerty,” but with an example like “qsefth,” your fingers might remember what your password is even if your brain doesn’t, as Romberger says (try the combo on your keyboard to see what she means).

• Now make your password even stronger by adding some numbers. But avoid sequential number (“123″ or “321,” for example), Fertik says. He adds that it’s also better to intermingle numbers and letters: In other words, i0l3m1g9h7j0 is a better password than ilmghj031970.

Romberger points out that you should avoid obvious numbers in your password, such as your house number or the last four digits of your phone number. “Or if you’re going to do something like that, transpose them,” she says.

• Are you using a password like “wh33l” that replaces letters with the numbers that look like them? “You still have to be careful even with those, because those are common substitutions,” Romberger says. It’s not a big stretch for a hacker to run the program with dictionary words again and replace the e’s in words with 3′s, for example.

• If you’re looking for an online password manager to store, secure and organize your passwords, Romberger recommends Passpack (passpack.com). Such sites and software are only as good as the company behind them, she cautions, and she likes Passpack’s track record.

• You probably already know you should vary your passwords across all the sites you use, but you can also add security to your accounts by having different user names for different accounts, Fertik says. He suggests having one set of user names and passwords for “fun” use (like Twitter) and another one for online access to your bank or credit card accounts, for example.

For more advice on how to protect your privacy and reputation online, make sure to keep coming back to the ReputationDefender Blog. You can also follow ReputationDefender on Twitter.