Your first line of e-defense: strong passwords

Whether it’s horror stories of online identity theft, foreign hackers infiltrating our government and corporate communications or even just your next-door neighbor piggybacking on your wireless signal, electronic security is something we all need to take seriously. It doesn’t matter whether you live in the middle of a big city or in a rural area — anyone can be a target. 

The good news is that you don’t have to be an IT expert to deploy the most basic fix out there: creation of a strong password. Your network, your email, your bank accounts and any other information you need secure can be vulnerable if you pick a password easily guessed or hacked. All internet connections are vulnerable, so it’s important to choose a unique password regardless if you have dial-up, DSL, satellite Internet, or even fiber optic connections.

When selecting a password for your electronic accounts, don’t pick something easy to figure out – birthdays, pets’ names or, worse yet, “password.” Try to avoid writing down your password once you have established it. And under no circumstances should you share it with anyone. These simple steps can make the difference between stopping hackers and letting them in.

The not-so-simple step is using unique passwords for all your websites and applications. It adds to the work you need to do to stay secure, but if you consider the alternative, it’s worth it. If you use the same password everywhere and one website is compromised so that hackers get your email/password, they’ll hit all the major banking sites and try the same combination

You might consider using a password manager, but read the reviews — like this one on Gizmodo — and pick a good one.

For some more information about security on your Exede Internet service, check out our page for extra Internet security tips.

Google’s Good To Know online safety site is also a great resource, with a section on passwords that’s well worth taking a look at.

A rogues’ gallery of lame passwords

Oftentimes, when they raid a database, hackers add insult to injury by posting usernames and passwords online. Every year, SplashData, a web and smartphone application provider, publishes a list generated from these postings, providing a look at the most popular — and, obviously, least successful — passwords of the year. Here are the results for 2012 — each entry’s parenthetical note compares its ranking to where it placed in 2011.

1. password (unchanged)

2. 123456 (unchanged)

3. 12345678 (unchanged)

4. abc123 (up 1)

5. qwerty (down 1)

6. monkey (unchanged)

7. letmein (up 1)

8. dragon (up 2)

9. 111111 (up 3)

10. baseball (up 1)

11. iloveyou (up 2)

12. trustno1 (down 3)

13. 1234567 (down 6)

14. sunshine (up 1)

15. master (down 1)

16. 123123 (up 4)

17. welcome (new)

18. shadow (up 1)

19. ashley (down 3)

20. football (up 5)

21. jesus (new)

22. michael (up 2)

23. ninja (new)

24. mustang (new)

25. password1 (new)

Please email comments or questions about this post or suggestions for other things you’d like to know about to exedeblog@viasat.com.