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Simple ways to improve your password security

Posted at 4:50 PM, Jun 06, 2016
and last updated 2016-06-06 22:48:37-04

Even the founder of Facebook can't seem to keep his passwords private.

Mark Zuckerberg's account was part of the 2012 LinkedIn hack that came to light last month. The attackers claimed to have obtained more than a hundred million passwords.

Zuckerberg's Twitter and Pinterest accounts were reportedly hacked Sunday, using the password 'dadada,' which is the name of a song by the German band Trio.

"It's kind of become popular in the geek culture," said Dr. Steven Beaty, a computer science professor at Metropolitan State University Denver. "It was also used in a Volkswagen commercial, so many of us are thinking that's where he got it."

Beaty says we can all learn from Zuckerberg's mistake. He says it is important not to use the same password for multiple accounts.

"Mark clearly knows better," said Beaty. "All of us -- know better."

Beaty recommends creating passwords with at least 12 characters. He suggests using a series of short words in different orders. It turns out words followed by numbers don't add any extra protection to our accounts, after all.

"Longer is always stronger. So putting in funny characters, ones for I's and threes for E's does no good," said Beaty.

Beaty's best advice is to use a password managing program that generates and stores passwords for you. That way you only have to remember one.