Cybersecurity experts recommend changing your password every three months. There may even be situations where you should change your password immediately, especially if a cybercriminal has access to your account.
You've probably heard that it's best practice to change your passwords every three months to safeguard your accounts. But the fact is, there aren't benefits to doing so, and it might even be counterproductive. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) no longer recommends regular password changes.
Reusing the same passwords for multiple accounts is bad practice because it opens you up to credential stuffing attacks, which take leaked credentials from one site/service and use them on other sites/services. It's as if you had multiple houses and used the same lock and key for all of them.
If you keep getting asked to change your password, someone may be trying to get into your account using harmful software. We strongly recommend that you: Update your anti-virus software and use it to scan your computer.
Changing passwords every 90 days could leave an exposed password usable by an attacker for up to three months. NIST maintained it was far better to require passwords be changed immediately when an exploit has been detected, rather than requiring changes four times a year, even with no detected risk.
After Discovering You've Opened Malware or You've Been Phished. Changing your passwords may not mitigate all the damage from malware or a successful phishing expedition. Still, it can keep future attackers or scammers from accessing your accounts or impersonating you further.
The primary reason security professionals advise against periodic password changes is that when human beings change that often, they tend to conform to a pattern.
Whatever your reason for doing it, reusing passwords is a practice best left behind. If accounts are compromised, cybercriminals can do a great deal of damage, such as committing identity theft, or stealing money and sensitive information from your place of work.
Reusing passwords makes it possible for a malicious agent to hack into an account to have access to others belonging to the same user. And the more a password is reused, the greater the risk of having the credentials breached.
Password reuse is when a person uses the same password across multiple online accounts and services, such as using the same password for your email address and bank account. Many people may reuse a password because it's easier for them to memorize one password instead of several.
1. Mix meanless Word, number and symbol randomly, and at least 15 length. Mix meanless Word, number and symbol randomly, and at least 15 length (mix uppercase and lowercase). Actually, strongest password equals to hardest remember password, for example “E7r9t8@Q#h%Hy+M”.
The one truly safe solution is to have a different password for each and every account. If you have 100 accounts, 100 passwords really is the safest move. This is because hackers can find any online accounts tied to your email address, and will immediately try reusing any password across all your accounts.
Only 35 percent use a different password for every account. This is corroborated by other studies including a 2021 Spycloud study that says 70 percent of people reuse passwords for their personal accounts.
73% of users duplicate their passwords in both their personal and work accounts. Security.org found that 76% of millennials recycle their passwords.
13% of Americans use the same password for every account (Google, Harris Poll) A Google poll found that 1 in 8 US adults used the same password for every single one of their online accounts. An additional 52% reused the same password for some of their accounts, while 35% used unique passwords for every account.
Once hackers have gained access to your email, they often change the password to prevent you from logging in. However, hackers don't always change your password, and sometimes you will still be able to access your email account.
Cybersecurity experts recommend changing your password every three months. There may even be situations where you should change your password immediately, especially if a cybercriminal has access to your account.
Experts recommend using longer passwords when possible. The longer a password is, the more possible permutations it has, making it harder and harder for cybercriminals to crack.
Your password is weak: If any of your passwords are not long, random, and complex, they are considered weak. This makes them easier to guess and steal. Changing all weak passwords will protect your online accounts from cybercriminals.
To make matters worse, most password policies insist that we have to keep changing them. And when forced to change one, the chances are that the new password will be similar to the old one. Attackers can exploit this weakness. The new password may have been used elsewhere, and attackers can exploit this too.
Numeric patterns are worldwide favorites when it comes to creating a weak, easy-to-guess password. Increasing (e.g. 123456) or repetitive (e.g. 111111) numeric patterns could be observed in 8 out of the top 10 and 13 out of the top 30 most used passwords.
In this case, a 20 characters' long password made up from 70 different symbols (lower case, upper case, digits, special characters) is as strong as today's encryption keys. Which means, it is “cryptographically secure” and it doesn't make sense to go any further.
Overall, 29.4% of respondents change their passwords rarely or never: 10.9% of respondents say they never change their passwords. 18.5% change their passwords only when they've been notified of a security issue.