World Password Day - May 7, 2026
The first Thursday of May has been designated World Password Day. We think this is a great time to review password usage.
If you’re like most of us, you have a dizzying array of passwords, Here are a few things to keep in mind for home and work.
Use Secure Passwords
Seems pretty simple, right? Consider all of your passwords.
If you think your passwords aren’t “that bad,” you should probably change them. (How Do I Create a Good Password?).
So, what makes a strong, secure password?
Here are a few easy guidelines.
- LENGTH. The length of the password is probably the most important part. An 8-character password takes 200 billion guesses. Sounds good, right? Well, the laptop you’re probably reading this on can easily make 100 billion guesses per second. Suddenly 8 characters are not secure at all. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommends at least 15 characters long. At 15 characters, it would take your laptop over 500 years to crack your password!
- SPECIAL CHARACTERS AND NUMBERS. While NIST no longer recommends that passwords must have special characters and numbers; you can still use them, and maybe you should. In fact, they may be required by the website you’re creating a password for. They do add to the complexity and do make passwords more difficult to guess. But a short password with special characters and numbers is still a short password, so it is easier to discover. The traditional recommendation to use a mix of capital/lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters in a long password for a secure password still holds true.
- KEEP IT UNIQUE. Don’t reuse passwords. For those in the back, we’ll say it again: DON’T REUSE PASSWORDS. If you have one password for 50 sites, what happens if one of those sites is breached? It is more secure to create a unique password for every site.
Vigilance is key!
There’s conflicting information about how often we should change passwords. Experts used to agree that all passwords should be changed at regular intervals, some as often as every 30 days. While that is still a solid practice when done correctly, it can be problematic. Why? There is a tendency that we will resort to less secure, easy-to-remember passwords if we’re changing them frequently (How Secure is my Password). A password manager will help in this case, as will the understanding that a little convenience can come at a big cost. EVERY password should be complex and long, using upper- and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols, no matter how frequently it changes.
Password Managers are a great solution.
Password managers can save your login credentials for all your online accounts, work and personal. You don’t even need to come up with the passwords: they can generate complex, secure passwords automatically and store them safely. Some tools will even alert you if your credentials have been exposed in a breach. You can find more information in this PC Mag article. In addition to saving time and improving security, a password manager can also store personal information, such as addresses or credit cards.
Remembering 50 passwords is near impossible for most people. Having a list on your computer, or on a piece of paper in your desk, isn’t secure. Go with a password manager.
Admins don’t get a pass!
Good cyber hygiene starts at the top. When implementing safe password practices, ALL employees must use secure passwords. Even I.T. admins should be held accountable. A 2023 review by Outpost24 showed that out of 1.8 million passwords, I.T. admins used “admin” over 40,000 times ([Research] IT admins are using weak passwords too). Much of this is due to the continued use of default passwords, a lazy practice that can have devastating effects. The top 5 of Outpost24’s list?
- admin
- 123456
- 12345678
- 1234
- Password
We can all do better, and we should. We’re not implying that YOU have lazy cyber-hygiene but make sure everyone at your workplace is on board.
There are so many options to enhance our everyday security. We haven’t even mentioned biometrics! Taking a few short steps can make you, and your business, much more secure.