Hardly a day goes by without a report of a website being hacked and accounts stolen. This time it’s Instagram’s turn.
https://blog.avast.com/hackers-attack-instagram
So change your Instagram password now.
But what to change it to?
Well, firstly not to anything you have used before. Password reuse is worst thing you could do because when one website is hacked, all of your other accounts will be stolen as well.
Think you have a really good password? I bet it’s not. Is it one of these:
- Your name or nickname
- Your kids names or nicknames
- The name or nickname of anyone you know or are related to
- The name of your pet
- The name of your favourite sports team or player
- The street, town, city where you live or were born
- The name of your favourite show or character
Am I close? If so your account has already been stolen – you just don’t know it yet.
Basically anything you can remember is probably not a good password.
In 2012 a hacker built a machine that could try 350 billion password guesses per second.
Machines have only got faster since then.
What to do?
Avast have some good advice.
https://blog.avast.com/strong-password-ideas
Basically:
- Have a different password for every website
- Use passwords of at least 20 characters
- Random characters are best, otherwise use multiple words
- Use a password manager to automate this
- Enable Two Factor Authentication (2FA) where available
If this is all too difficult, I can setup a password manager for you.
Stay safe out there.