Password Reminders To Share With Your Family

I write about family safety for several reasons, one of which, is that I’ve experienced a few digital disasters first hand and hope by sharing, I can somehow help others. A few of my own personal tech collisions: I’ve had my identity stolen, I’ve been hacked, and one of the most painful—our family had a password stolen by family friend.

Am I naive? No. Am I just an idiot? No (although when these things happened I did feel like like one). Was I being reckless with my digital habits? No.

Digital disasters happen because it’s the world we live in. Before technology, thieves from Butch Cassidy to Bonnie and Clyde found ways to steal. People with moral deficits steal from other people. They always have and they always will. Today, technology just gives thieves one more getaway car.

If you’ve ever been the victim of digital theft, some surprising emotions follow. In my case, I felt humiliated, embarrassed, betrayed, and for some odd reason, ashamed (anger didn’t come until much later). I didn’t want to tell anyone what happened. How could I be so stupid? Why did this happen? How could I/we be so gullible? Do I look like an easy target?

Our password story in short: The culprit—my son’s friend and frequent visitor to our home—simply looked over my son’s shoulder one night as he typed in his iTunes password. Then, for the next year, the “friend” proceeded to download nearly four hundred dollars in songs, video games, and apps. We didn’t notice the ten dollars here or the five dollars there until later when the thief got greedy and spent $35 in downloads in one day.

It took us several days of contacting iTunes, working with our bank, and interrogating our own kids before we figured it out. The most surprised person: my son. The betrayal hurt him deeply and taught us all:  A) how easy it is to get someone’s password B) we are never as secure as we think we are C) online security applies to every aspect of your life—even your circle of trusted friends.

All are great but very tough lessons for a  teenager and his family to learn. While money is replaceable, the friendship was lost, and our collective sense of trust in others was definitely rocked for a while. Could security software have caught the theft? Not likely. However, holding the reigns of our personal information more tightly and changing out our password could have curbed the impact to both our hearts and our bank account.

What You Need to Know 

Hacking and stealing is a sport. Hackers have their own communities/chat rooms online where they share secrets, educate one another, brag about their crimes, and share new tools to help each other crack open personal codes. Shockingly, these chats look like this: “When you need to brute force crack a remote authentication service, [tool X] is often the tool of choice. It can perform rapid dictionary attacks against more than 30 protocols, including telnet, ftp, http, https, smb, several databases, and much more.”

Hard to believe, right? It’s pretty scary to learn that thieves make it sport and even compete to find creative ways to breach your personal security, which is a reality we need to teach our kids.

Password reminders to share with your family:

It’s not uncommon for teens to share social media passwords as a sign of trust with one another, especially if they are dating and want to appear transparent to one another. Counsel against this unsafe practice. Challenge your kids to be over-the-top secretive with passwords.

Encourage your kids to turn away from another person or cover his or her screen when inputting a password, even if they feel awkward about it. Counsel them to never allow anyone to look over their shoulder when inputting a password on a PC, at the ATM, home security system, or on a gaming device. People determined to steal will try to replicate that password on other family devices.

For top-notch account security, update your passwords every six months. There are secure solutions out there that help make the process painless like Intel Security True Key™

Enable two-factor authentication for accounts, wherever possible. Two-factor authentication, where a user is verified by something they know (like a password) and something they have (like a smartphone) is a great guard against account compromise. Not all services offer it, but the big ones (email providers, social networks) usually do.

1. Keep a running list of all online services you use that require a password. Update your credentials for all of them with long, complex passwords that use a random set of numbers, symbols and letters. True Key can generate, organize, and manage passwords for you.
2. When creating a password, don’t use a word found in the dictionary or any personal information such as your name, birth date, pet’s name, or the street you live on.
3. And, don’t use any of the above words with a number after it like MaryFrances1 because hackers know many logins require a word and at least one number.
4. Never use keyboard sequences like “asdfghjk” or “67890.”
5. Never use sequential numbers or letters like “123456” or “abcdefg.”
6. Mix special characters and numbers in addition to letters when creating a password.
7. Never use the last four digits of your social security number.
8. Don’t use obvious words like “password,” “letmein” “God” or “love.” Hackers attempt to think like the average Joe.
9. Use a different password for each site or app you use. Change out your passwords regularly, especially those on very private accounts such as banking sites.
10. Visit PasswordDay.org with your kids to get more useful password tips.