4 effective methods to protect your online identity

Creating complicated passwords, enabling two-factor authentication and using different access keys: here are some tips for World Password Day

A simple word that protects our personal data and our privacy. Very often we underestimate the importance that passwords have in our lives: every day we enter dozens of them to access social networks, email accounts and the various services we use for work.

Unfortunately, the password is not always the most efficient way to protect our privacy. It all depends on the user's skill in choosing an access key that is almost impossible for a hacker to crack (the perfect password, unfortunately, does not yet exist). Words like "123456", your date of birth or your pet's name can be discovered by hackers in less than five minutes. Remembering long passwords can be tricky, but just use a password manager and the problem is solved. Here are four simple tricks to protect your privacy and secure your personal data.

Use a complex password

If it takes hackers four or five days to crack a password, chances are they won't try. Creating a complicated security key is not difficult: experts recommend using a password that has more than eight characters and contains at least one capital letter, one number and one special symbol. If you want to make life even more complicated for hackers, just use a phrase as a password. Nothing too complicated, just two or three words and your account will be (almost) protected.

Use a different password for each account

The access keys must be different as well as complicated: we cannot use the same password for all accounts. The reason is quite simple: once the hacker has discovered it, he will have access to all your personal data.

Password manager

If using a different password for each account seems complicated to you, you can ask for help from password managers, programs that allow you to save all your access keys. There are dozens of them on the market, all of them quite reliable: you'll just have to choose one to keep your passwords safe. The credentials inside the password manager are protected by a master password that only the user knows.

Enable two-factor authentication

To really secure your data, the best solution is to enable two-step verification. Nowadays, all social networks and major online services allow you to activate it: this way, if a hacker managed to get the password, he could never log in without the second password.