Password Generator

There are weak passwords in every corner of your organization. Passwords are used by employees to access computers and internet resources. IT administrators have passwords that grant them exclusive access. Moreover, passwords are used to launch programs and communicate information in enterprise systems like databases and applications. Your entire company could be at risk if a cybercriminal discovers a weak password for an account with elevated access, also referred to as "privileged credentials" by IT teams.

Strong, randomly generated passwords should take the place of your weak ones.

How secure is my password, exactly? 

Maybe you think your passwords are highly secure and hard to crack. But, if a hacker has obtained your username and your password's MD5 hash value from a company server and the hacker's rainbow table has this MD5 hash, your password will be easily cracked. You can use an MD5 hash generator to convert your passwords to hashes, which can then be submitted to an online MD5 decryption service to check the strength of your passwords and determine whether they fall into the well-known rainbow tables. If your password is "0123456789A," for example, how long will it take a computer to decode it if you submit its MD5 hash (C8E7279CD035B23BB9C0F1F954DFF5B3) to an MD5 decryption website? Using the brute-force method, it might take a computer approximately a year to crack your password. You can run the test on your own. 

You should be aware of the following in order to protect your online accounts against social engineering, brute force, or dictionary attacks and prevent password hacking:

1. Avoid using the same password, security question, and response across many significant accounts. 

2. Make sure your password is at least 16 characters long and has at least one number, one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, and one special symbol. 

3. Avoid using names of your loved ones, close friends, or pets as passwords. 

4. Avoid using common passwords like postcodes, house numbers, phone numbers, birthdays, ID card numbers, social security numbers, etc. 

5. Avoid using words from dictionaries in your passwords. Strong password examples include ePYHcdS*)8$+V-', qzRtC6rXN3NRgL, and zbfUMZPE6'FC%)sZ. Qwert12345, Gbt3fC79ZmMEFUFJ, 1234567890, 987654321, and nortonpassword are a few examples of bad passwords. 

6. Avoid using multiple passwords that are similar in that most of their characters are the same, such as ilovefreshflowersMac and ilovefreshflowersDropBox, since if one of them is stolen, they are all stolen. 

7. Avoid storing your passwords in your web browsers (FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge), as any credentials kept there can be easily guessed. 

8. Avoid accessing sensitive accounts while using a public Wi-Fi hotspot, Tor, a free VPN, or a web proxy, or when using a computer that belongs to someone else. 

9. Avoid sending sensitive information through unencrypted networks, such as HTTP or FTP, as messages can be easily intercepted using these methods. Where possible, you should use encrypted connections like HTTPS, SFTP, FTPS, SMTPS, and IPSec. 

10. You may secure your Internet connections while traveling by encrypting them before you leave your laptop, tablet, phone, or router. On your own server (home computer, dedicated server, or virtual private server), for instance, you can set up a private VPN using protocols like WireGuard (or IKEv2, OpenVPN, SSTP, or L2TP over IPSec) and connect to it. As an alternative, you can configure Chrome or FireFox to use socks proxy and create an encrypted SSH tunnel between your PC and your own server. Then, even if someone uses a packet sniffer to intercept your data as it travels between your device (such as a laptop, iPhone, or iPad), and your server, they won't be able to extract your data and passwords from the encrypted streaming data.

11. Every 10 weeks, you should switch your passwords.

12. It is advised that you keep a few master passwords in mind, encrypt additional passwords stored in plain text files using 7-Zip, GPG, or disk encryption software like BitLocker, or use password management software to keep track of your passwords.

13. Encrypt and backup your passwords so that you can quickly recover them in the event that you lose access to your computer or account. 

14. Where feasible, enable 2-step authentication. 

15. Avoid keeping your important passwords in the cloud. 

16. Visit critical websites (like Paypal) straight from bookmarks; otherwise, carefully check the domain name. It's a good idea to use the Alexa toolbar to determine a website's popularity to be sure it isn't a phishing site before entering your password. 

17. Use firewall and antivirus software to secure your computer. Use the firewall to block any unauthorized incoming and outgoing connections. Never download software from trustworthy websites, and wherever feasible, check the installation package's MD5/SHA1/SHA256 checksum or GPG signature. 

18. Maintain your devices' operating systems (such as Windows 7, Windows 10, Mac OS X, iOS, Linux), as well as their web browsers (such as Firefox, Chrome, IE, and Microsoft Edge), up to date by applying the most recent security update. 

19. If you have sensitive information on your computer that is accessible to others, you should periodically check for hardware keyloggers (such as wireless keyboard sniffers), software keyloggers, and hidden cameras. 

20. If your home has WiFi routers, someone could learn the passwords you wrote (at your neighbor's home) by observing the gestures of your fingers and hands because doing so will cause the WIFI signal they got to alter. In these circumstances, you can type your passwords using an on-screen keyboard; however, it would be more safe if the layout of this virtual keyboard (also known as a soft keyboard) changed frequently.

21. Before storing crucial files on an old device, encrypt the entire hard drive with VeraCrypt, FileVault, LUKS, or comparable software, and if necessary, physically destroy the hard drive.

22. Use one Web browser to view critical websites and a different one to access other websites, or access crucial websites in private or incognito mode. Or use a virtual computer made using VMware, VirtualBox, or Parallels to view unimportant websites and install new software. Use at least three different email addresses: the first one for receiving emails from Paypal and Amazon, the second for emails from unimportant sites and Apps, and the third (from a different email provider, such as Outlook or GMail) for receiving your password-reset email in the event that the first one (for example, Yahoo Mail) is compromised. Utilize at least two different phone numbers, and keep the one you use to get text messages with verification codes private. 

23. Unless you are certain that a message is authentic, never click a link in an email or SMS message to reset your password. 

24. It's likely that some of the software or apps you've downloaded or updated have been altered by hackers; you can prevent this issue by avoiding the first installation of such software or apps, until they are released to address security flaws. Instead, you can use Web-based programs, which are more portable and secure. 

25. Take care not to allow online paste and screen capture programs to upload your credentials to the cloud when utilizing them. 

26. If you're a webmaster, you should save the salted (SHA1, SHA256, or SHA512) hash values of these strings in the database instead of storing the user passwords, security questions, and answers as plain text. It is advised to produce a special random salt string for each user. Additionally, it's a good idea to record the user's device details (such as OS version, screen resolution, etc.) and save the salted hash values of them. Then, when the user tries to login with the correct password but his or her device details DON'T MATCH THE PREVIOUS SAVED ONE, allow this user to verify his or her identity by entering another verification code sent via SMS or email. 

27. If you work as a software developer, you should release an update package that has been signed with a private key using GnuPG and check its signature against the previously made public version of the developer's public key. 

28. Since you can host your mail server anywhere and your email account can't be disabled by the email provider, you should establish a domain name of your own and set up an email account with this domain name to keep your online business secure. 

29. Use a virtual credit card in place of a physical credit card if an online retailer only accepts credit cards for payment. 

30. Shut your web browser when you're finished using it. If you don't, cookies can be readily intercepted with a simple USB device, allowing someone to enter into your account and avoid two-step verification by using stolen cookies on other machines. 

31. If you use a faulty SSL certificate, you cannot guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of HTTPS connections using that certificate. Distrust it and uninstall it from your web browser. 

32. If you don't want to disable the pagefile and hibernation functions, please encrypt the entire system disk. This is because your essential documents might be stored in the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys files. 

33. You can install intrusion detection and prevention software such as LFD(Login Failure Daemon) or Fail2Ban to prevent brute force login attacks on your dedicated servers, VPS servers, or cloud servers. 

34. If at all possible, utilize cloud-based software rather than installing it locally on your device, as supply-chain assaults are becoming more and more common. These attacks aim to install malicious software or updates on your device in order to steal your credentials and access sensitive data. 

35. It's a good idea to create the MD5 or SHA1 checksums for each file on your computer using software like MD5Summer, save the results, and then check the integrity of your files every day by comparing their checksums to the previously saved results in order to identify trojan files or programs with backdoors injected.

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