Passwords Are the Watchdogs of Your Privacy. And Longer Is Better

Cybersecurity awareness month is here, and we’re running a fun new campaign for everyone following us. In this four-part series we’ve enlisted the help of four tech-savvy characters that are eager to teach us some important security tips while surfing the web. To kick off the series, let’s give a warm welcome to Password Dachshund!

Weak passwords are the top entry point in most cyber-attacks. A new Bitdefender survey shows that 1 in 5 people recycle a single password across all their online accounts. And around a quarter of Internet users are using simple passwords (qwerty, Password, etc. with some slight variations) for their online accounts.

According to a recent Microsoft study, one in 10 people reuse passwords across sites, and 40% say they've used a formula for their passwords, like Fall2021, which eventually becomes Winter2021 or Spring2022.

Password Dachshund reads the news regularly. So he decided to chime in with some recommendations to curb these trends. His advice:

“When you create a new account or change an old password, be sure to go at least eight characters long, don’t use anything too predictable (like your name or birth date), use upper and lowercase letters, and sprinkle a few special characters ($%&*#) here and there for good measure. This makes it hard for hackers to guess it – even if they have a lot of computing power on their hands.

In short (hehe…!) make your password long and one-of-a-kind. Just like me. Go ahead and use a password manager too! That way you won’t have to worry about remembering anything too convoluted.”

Password Dachshund is right. The first step to ensure our online personas are safe from prying eyes is to use long, unique passwords. And by employing a password manager, we can have complex, unique passwords for each and every online account we use, without the hassle of having to remember them all.

We thank Password Dachshund for his help in reaching out to our audience with these valuable security tips. If you like him as much as we do, head over to Bitdefender’s Instagram page and use the effects button to virtually stamp this geeky sausage dog on your T-Shirt.

Don’t run off just yet!

We’ve also extended the free trial for Bitdefender Total Security from 30 days to 90. We encourage everyone to download the package and experience best-in-class protection for their Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices for three full months.

Until next time, stay safe!