10 Sure Ways to Get Your Password (or PIN) Hacked

Not too long ago I posted about the 10 Things Not to Share on Social Media, and that post quickly became one of the most popular ones in my blog.

So, today I’d like to give another similar list — a list of 10 things not to think of when creating your password (or PIN, for that matter!)

So here we go:

10 Sure Ways to Get Your Password Hacked

  1. Use your birthday
  2. Use your phone number (or any parts of it)
  3. Use your zip/postal code
  4. Use your spouse’s or kids’ names
  5. Write it down
  6. Base it on your own name, or your business name
  7. Base it on your passion
  8. Just type in password
  9. Use the same one everywhere
  10. Never change it (change it every quarter)

What have I missed?

5 thoughts on “10 Sure Ways to Get Your Password (or PIN) Hacked”

  1. Quick question: If we can’t write it down and we have to use different passwords for each site, how are we suppose to remember them all?

    1. Good one, Heather. Something that may help is splitting websites into groups, and having a password per group.

      Another solution is to look into password managers like 1Password by AgileBits, or LastPass.

  2. 1password is a good suggestion. Having secure passwords generated for you ensures no bad practices. It seems lack of SSL is a critical exposure no matter how secure the password is. Moving forward, I look for ubiquitous biometrics based access to eliminate the need for passwords altogether. e.g fingerprint reader on laptops, voice scan.

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