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With so many online accounts, it can be difficult to generate and remember unique passwords for each one. Many of us are thus guilty of using weak or easy-to-guess passwords, or even using the same password across many accounts. These practices are easy but unsafe in the long run, and can put sensitive information in danger.
In this article, I’ll show you different ways to keep your passwords safe. Security failures have become more frequent, increasing the risk of being hacked. So it’s smart to do your best to safeguard your data.
How Can You Keep Your Passwords Safe?
Since passwords are the main way to authenticate and access control to computer systems and personal accounts, keeping them safe is crucial. Strong passwords limit the chance of unauthorized access, safeguard your sensitive data, and preserve the integrity of your data.
The following are some of the best techniques to keep your passwords safe:
Use a Password Manager
Using a password manager is one of the best ways to keep your passwords safe. A password manager is a software application that securely keeps and manages all of your passwords in one location. Additionally, it creates strong passwords for you and fills them in automatically when you connect into your accounts.
This means you won’t need to remember each password, and you’ll also be better able to make sure that each password is unique and safe. Here are a few good examples of trustworthy password managers: Bitwarden , LastPass , Dashlane .
Use a Strong Password
To keep your passwords safe and unpredictable, it’s critical to use a mix of upper and lower case letters, digits, and symbols when creating them. Also you should avoid using personal information like your name, age, or phone number.
Experts advise to include a minimum of eight characters in your password. Also, instead of using a password, consider using a passphrase, which is a lengthier string of words. Make sure this phrase is simple for you to remember but challenging for others to decipher.
They not only make it nearly impossible for hackers to access your device, but they also make it more difficult for offline thieves to access the private data saved on your phone.
Avoid Reusing Passwords
Using the same password across several accounts puts your password security at risk because if one account is compromised, all of your accounts are accessible.
As a result, to keep your passwords safe, it’s essential to make each account’s password distinct. As I’ve described above, a password manager can be an excellent solution if you have trouble remembering all of your passwords.
Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Two-factor authentication secures your accounts by requiring an additional authentication factor in addition to your password, such as a fingerprint scan or a one-time code delivered to your phone.
Without the second factor of authentication, even if someone guesses or hacks your password, they won’t be able to access your account. These are some good 2FA manager options to keep your passwords safe: Authy , Google Authenticator .
Change Passwords Regularly
It’s a good idea to update your passwords on a regular basis, at least once every three months, to keep your passwords safe. It’s considerably better for password security because it reduces the possibility of someone guessing or cracking your password.
If you use a password manager, it gets simpler to change your passwords on a regular basis.
Be Wary of Phishing Scams
Phishing schemes are fraudulent attempts to steal personal information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card information by impersonating a legitimate organization. Be wary of emails, messages, or phone calls requesting your login details or other personal information.
Before disclosing any personal information, always check the source’s legitimacy. This is important to keep your passwords safe.
Lock Up Your Phone
This one should be obvious, but I’ll mention it nonetheless. Set up a difficult-to-crack password as soon as you obtain a new device, whether it’s a tablet or a smartphone. Also make sure to enable device lock (turn the screen off at all times). Adjust the phone’s settings to have it lock automatically after a certain period of inactivity if you find this inconvenient for any reason.
To conclude , it’s important to keep your passwords safe since they’re the key to your user accounts, sensitive information, and personal information. You can keep your passwords safe and lessen the risk of your accounts being hacked or compromised by following the tips I’ve provided in this guide.
If you need more ideas to safeguard your data, check out our iPhone and Android security guides.
Author:Joan Agie
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In May 2023, Google changed its inactive account policy , stating that accounts with no activity for two years would be deleted starting in December 2023. This policy change is to protect most users against security threats. However, it has raised the need to protect Google data from deletion to avoid losing any important information.
So, in this article, I’ll show you how to protect Google data from deletion in case Google deletes your dormant account. Pay attention to all the tips to prevent unnecessary data loss.
- How Can You Protect Google Data From Deletion? Check and Update All Connected Accounts Download Your Videos and Photos From Google Photos Transfer Your Google Drive Content to Your Active Account Download Your Gmail Inbox Transfer Contacts to Your Other Google Account Back-Up Your Google Calendar
How Can You Protect Google Data From Deletion?
With Google implementing a stricter stance against inactive accounts, it’s worth protecting your data to keep it secure. Here are some ways to protect Google data from deletion.
Check and Update All Connected Accounts
You should update all linked email accounts, regardless of whether you use your Google account for single Sign-On or simply as a username for your other accounts. This is because accounts from other services that use your Google account as your primary email cannot be recovered if Google deletes your inactive account.
To locate all accounts connected to your inactive Google account’s email address and protect Google data from deletion, log in to your Google account. By doing this, you can make sure that your active Google account is linked to all of your accounts. After all, you don’t want to discover all of a sudden that your access to services like Spotify or Netflix has been lost because Google deactivated the associated account.
Download Your Videos and Photos From Google Photos
Another thing you’ll have to consider when trying to protect Google data from deletion are your photo and video memories. Google automatically backs up the photographs and videos you take via Google Photos if you have an Android phone. If you have an old Pixel phone with unlimited backups, this is especially true.
However, if you have a new phone and a new Google account, your old Google account may still have your pictures and videos. Therefore, you should export your photos and videos from Google Photos to make sure you don’t lose them if Google deletes your inactive account.
Transfer Your Google Drive Content to Your Active Account
Google Drive is an excellent online service for sharing huge files. However, if your old Google account is deleted, the contents of your Google Drive are lost permanently. As a result, even if you share your Google Drive files with non-Gmail accounts, they will no longer have access to them.
Download Your Gmail Inbox
Many people use their Google inbox as a lasting record of their lives. However, if Google deletes unused accounts, all this inbox data would be lost. So, if you save old receipts, tickets, and reminders in your inbox, export them for safety to protect Google data from deletion.
You can download your Gmail MBOX data and import it into another email client, such as Mozilla Thunderbird. By doing this, you can access old messages even if Google deletes the account that was linked to them. Just be sure to back up this MBOX file since it is now locally saved on your PC. Considering that your MBOX file will also fail if your storage fails,
Transfer Contacts to Your Other Google Account
Before the smartphone, people used to save their contacts in a notepad, on their SIM cards, or their phones. However, with the emergence of smartphone-enabled consumers, they save their contacts in their accounts.
This enabled users to sync their address book across devices. However, if you haven’t changed your device in a while and have set up a new Google account, you may have forgotten to sync your contacts.
Therefore, if Google deletes your previous account, you could be shocked to discover that all of your contact information is gone. You should move your contacts between Google accounts to prevent such problems and protect Google data from deletion.
Back-Up Your Google Calendar
For the most part, Google Calendar is a forward-looking tool that allows you to manage your time in the future. However, some people also use Google Calendar as a personal notebook. So, if you kept a diary on a previous Google account, you should export its Google Calendar material to make sure you don’t lose it.
You could synchronize its contents with your existing calendar notebook app.
To conclude, if Google deletes an old account you hardly use, you can make sure you don’t lose anything by following the aforementioned steps to protect Google data from deletion.
However, if you are concerned that you will be unable to access your account for two years or more, you should create an inactive account manager to prevent Google from deleting it.
