How Hackable Are You?

If you’ve never been the victim of identity theft, consider yourself lucky. You just can't rely on luck to save you, though. Improve your odds by changing some bad Internet decisions that you and 300 million other Americans make every day.

Join SAFE Cents host Mark, as he meets his evil twin who has stolen his identity. You’ll learn some of the best ways to keep hackers from hacking you.

Online Security: a Video Summary

Do your online passwords contain personal information, like your pet’s name or your birth year? If so, your whole identity could be stolen within the hour.

As you can see, identity theft is a problem.

A lot of it comes down to the strength of your online passwords. Sure, everyone knows you need at least 8 characters, but let’s look at the reason why.

On average, it takes a cyber hacker about one hour to crack an eight-character password comprised of upper- and lower-case letters and numbers. But for an 11-digit password with a symbol thrown in could take 400 years.

But passwords like that are hard to remember, and you should never re-use a password.

Because if you do, a hacker will guess the password that you keep reusing and they will get all of your stuff.

But the average internet user has over 200 digital accounts that require passwords. 

The best way to defend yourself is to use a password manager that creates and stores random and hard-to-hack passwords for you.

Some password manager apps are free. The better ones, you pay for — but nowhere near what you’ll pay if someone steals your identity. 

Be sure to visit our Learning Center to find more educational materials from SAFE Federal Credit Union.