Change your password!

The 24th of November is national change your password day in the Netherlands. It is super important to change your password frequently to prevent your account from being hacked. Nowadays, passwords already have a lot of requirements to meet, like capital letters, lowercase letters, digits, and special characters. However, there are still a lot of people who have weak passwords.

Use the internet safer

Often, people do not think about the use of their passwords. People often find it difficult to remember multiple passwords, so they use the same password for multiple accounts, like social media accounts, e-mails, websites, and even for banking or other personal stuff. This does not only make it easier for yourself, but also for hackers. Passwords are also more likely to be involved in a data leak that makes your password unsafe. So it is not very handy to use the same password for multiple accounts. However, still 60% of the people in the Netherlands use the same password for multiple sites.

Check

The national change your password day is made up by a website called Tweakers and is supported by ‘Het Openbaar Ministerie’, Direct Research, Radar, and True. It is specially set up to support people to check their passwords, to make people aware of the importance, and to provide information about a good and safe password.

Tips for a better password

  1. Use different passwords for different accounts and sites
  2. Do not use your own name or other personal data that is easy to track down
  3. Combine multiple words
  4. Use a minimum of 8 characters
  5. Use a unique digit-combination
  6. Use specil characters like #, @, !