Today is World Password Day – Tips for What to Do, and Not Do

The first Thursday in May, May 2 this year, is World Password Day, intended to raise awareness of password best practices and the need for strong passwords. To mark the occasion this year, two cybersecurity companies have taken unique approaches to motivate everyone to take password security more seriously. Avira has released a report (available at WaterISAC) on the results of its research into password security, in which it notes that methods that are fun and convenient for users are more likely to lead to better security than simply offering reminders of the threats that exist, which only lead to short-lived impacts. To this end, it encourages adoption of password managers, as its research of people using these tools revealed they connected quicker to their accounts and had more fun. Incidentally, they kept their online lives much more secure. F-Secure’s posting, “How to pick the world’s worst passwords,” reviews the all too common practices that are revealed every time there’s a major data breach. F-Secure notes that setting and maintaining a secure password is among the basics of securing online identity, and yet doing so remains a problem for so many with habits like picking names and predictable number and keyboard patterns. Like the Avira report, it also advocates the use of a password manager.