How Secure Is My Password? & How To Pick A Strong Password?

Do you want to know if your website password is secure? Do you want to create a strong password for your WordPress website? Find answers in this article.

Setting up a password to secure our accounts is not a new concept to us. And WordPress is no different; to protect your website, you must password-protect it. But, does having a password will ensure your website’s security? Not exactly. It depends on what kind of usernames and passwords you choose for your websites.

Having a secure password is the first step to having a secure website. Do you have a secure password? Is your website easily breakable by brute-force attacks? How can you choose a strong password? Fret not because I have answers to all your questions.

How secure is my password- How to pick a strong password

How Are Brute-Force attacks And Weak Passwords Co-Related?

If you understand what brute-force attacks are, you wouldn’t need me elaborating on the effect of weak passwords on brute attacks. If you have easy and predictable passwords to your websites, you are going against the only thing passwords stand for; website protection.

Having weak passwords will provide no security to your website because they are easily solvable hackers in brute force attacks. Hackers use brute force attacks to break into your website by figuring out passwords to your website using bots. These bots can crack your website login credentials easily if they are predictable like the following:

  1. 123456
  2. 123456789
  3. abc123
  4. password
  5. password1, password2,(you can see the pattern).

While these passwords are easy for you to remember, they are also easy to guess. Doing this allows hackers to gain access to your website.  In a brute force attack, hackers use software to try out all the possible combinations of available characters until they log into your accounts. The more complicated your password is, the harder it will be for an attacker to access your website.

Your password can get stolen by a dictionary attack too. In this attack, a hacker tries out all the words in a dictionary to crawl into your website. For example, if your password is ‘website,’ your password can be figured out easily using this attack. However, if you use a string of words, you can outwit this attack. Your website passwords can also get stolen by phishing attacks, but using a complicated password will not prevent these attacks. 

Check out these articles to learn more about phishing attacks:

What Is URL Phishing?

What Is A Spear-Phishing Attack?

Three Basic Rules For Creating A Strong Password

We have learned how a password can get predicted using brute-force attacks and dictionary attacks. All we need to do now is create a password that both of these attacks can not solve. Here are the three basic rules to create a strong password:

Be Smart About Your Passwords

As I’ve earlier, most people tend to choose the silliest passwords like “123456” because they are easier to remember/type. We should avoid that at all costs and put some thought into picking an unpredictable password. Shun the idea of choosing your name, birthday, or other personal information because if a hacker is targetting your website, his first thought would be to check out your details.

Is Your Password Brute-Force Attack Friendly?

Follow these steps to create a password that can evade a brute-force attack:

  • Ensure that your password isn’t short, that it has more than fifteen characters. 
  • Do not just use alphabet characters. Create a string of characters that include numbers, symbols, bot uppercase, and lowercase letters. Doing this makes your password more complicated for a hacker to crack.
  • Stop mistaking that using letters with leetspeak substitutions will complicate your password. It won’t. Examples of leetspeak substitutions are 8 for B, 3 for E, etc. 
  • Often people use sequential letters on a keyword as a password because it is easier to remember, but you have to withdraw from doing that.

Is Your Password Dictionary Attack Friendly?

We have already learned that a dictionary attack preys on words. So all we need to do is to stop using words. You can use phrases or a bunch of words grouped to make a single string. This way, you can avoid a dictionary attack.

Methods That Can Help You Create Memorable Passwords

Creating random passwords and remembering can be extremely difficult. So, follow these methods to conjure up unpredictable yet memorable passwords:

  • Choosing just any phrase for your website password can be inconvenient to remember. Instead, you can use a group of words that include local stores, names(of someone else’s), and words in different languages. For example, holacamilladuckduckshoe is so ridiculous that a hacker will never be able to guess it. However, it is also easy to remember. You can also use special characters in the passphrase to make it more complicated like this: hola#camilladuckduckshoe&&. Try not to use phrases like thisismypassword because it is guessable.
  • You can also make a password by using a random sentence and adding a specific rule to it. For example, the random sentence that popped in my mind right now is mycatisgoingtogucci(I don’t have a cat, though). Now, the rule I want to stick by is that I should remove the last letter of each word. If I do that, the string becomes mcaigointgucc, and the password is good to go. All you need to do is remember the sentence as well as your rule.

Bonus Tips

  • Another way to produce a strong password is by using a password generator. Many password generators on the internet will put together random characters and provide a complicated password for you.
  • Do not share your website login passwords with anyone unless the person is someone you can completely trust.
  • Try using two-factor authentication on your website login page to ensure that you can monitor who gets access to your WordPress website.
  • Make sure not to use public networks. But if you have to, turn on VPN so that your username and password will not get stolen.
  • Do not ever text or email your password to anyone.

As long as you have a website, you will always worry about hackers and website breaches. But not when you have a WordPress security plugin to protect your website. Hide My WP security plugin can evade many attacks like brute attacks all-day. Here are some helpful features of the Hide My WP security plugin:

Hide My Wp security plugin
  • It will help you hide your Login Page. Hiding your login page will help prevent brute force attacks.
  • It has a firewall that will help you block cyber attacks like XSS,  SQL injectionCSRFCommand Injection, and many more.
  • Using this plugin, you to replace anything in your website source code.
  • You can hide default WordPress paths.
  • You can hide your plugins and themes from online detectors/bots.

Conclusion

WordPress security is always a concern to its users. We must always be aware of attacks like brute-force attacks and dictionary attacks. And the ground step of securing a website is by using a strong password. So, if your website password isn’t complicated enough, create a new one with the reference of this article.

Also Read: How To Secure A Contact Form On A WordPress Website?

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