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As you may know, choosing a password is the first step in keeping your brand safe online. This is for all your social profiles and Web and cloud computing services you’ve signed up for. But sometimes, if hackers are motivated by financial gain or by intentions to data mine your precious information, they will find ways to crack your password and gain entry into your account. Once there, they can get their grubby hands on your brand’s personal information, saved files, and, alarmingly, your list of followers.

Obviously, from this standpoint, the hacker can post poisoned links on your profile, send spammy messages on your profile pages and even privately to your followers. They can also peruse reports saved on your cloud apps and discover trade secrets and sensitive information they can exploit. All it takes for a hacker to crack into your Facebook, Twitter or blog is a bit of research on your other social profiles to find possible password clues. They can also use applications that can generate multiple character combinations until it cracks your password.

The following may be the most common password security tips, but if the last hack attack on Yahoo is any indication, then it’s safe to say that not everyone puts much weight on the importance of having a secured password.

 

Avoid Weak Passwords

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The aforementioned Yahoo hacking incident revealed that an alarming number of users still use weak passwords. Yes, some people unfortunately still don’t think much about password strength and use key combinations that are easiest to type in, thus the infamous “1234,” “password” and “qwerty.” Additionally, avoid using information about you that can be publicly available. In that regard, refrain from using your name, birthday, alma mater, of your favorite pet’s breed.

 

Make Your Passwords Unique

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Another cool way of having a virtually un-crackable password is by keeping them unique.

• Come Up With Your Own Password Scheme.
  Passwords that only you could’ve come up with will be the hardest to crack. Take cue from things you like using a line from one of your favorite band’s songs or a quote from your favorite movie. You can also write your passwords in L33T speak, or combine numbers and words that are significant to you.
• Use different passwords across your online profiles.
  Another unfortunately common thing among Web users is using the same password on anything that requires login credentials. Sure, this can help avoid the extra hassle of remembering and managing multiple passwords. But once a hacker sniffs out your password for, say, Tumblr, all your other accounts will be a cinch to log into.

 

Keep It Private

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Be a little loose lipped and you might unwittingly reveal your password to people doing some social engineering tactics for their own gain. As a good measure, share your brand’s passwords only with trusted people who will need access to the account for valid reasons. This may include coworkers sharing social media management with you like fellow social media marketers and brand managers. Should your Web dev team or anyone else require access to your accounts to accomplish their tasks, you can temporarily change passwords and then switch back when they’re done.

 

Don’t Leave It Hanging Around

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For people worrying about forgetting their passwords, it would be logical to have them listed down somewhere they can consult every now and then. However, writing them down on a piece of paper or saving them as an unprotected Notepad file should not be options. Instead, you can use password utilities to keep track of them, like LastPass, iPassword, or Keeper.

 

Change Passwords as You See Fit

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You can also decide to change your passwords to make sure your online profiles are indeed secure. Here, you’ll need to alert other people who also use those passwords to prevent any confusions that can end up getting your profile locked due to multiple failed login attempts.

• Some companies require their workers to change their passwords every few months. You can follow this practice but make sure your keep track of your passwords changes.
• Password changes can also be implemented should one or two employees using them are terminated or moved to other unrelated projects or departments.
• If your online profiles’ privacy be compromised, be ready to change your passwords immediately.

Tags: Passwords, Security, social media marketing, social networking