Make your passwords more complicated, says cyber-crime unit

Use a passsentence instead of a password to improve your internet security. That is the message of a new campaign by Cert.be, the federal cyber emergency team.

“Passwords remain the key to much personal and professional information,” said Cert.be co-ordinator Christian Van Heurck. “If you have access to somebody’s email, then you have access to their life: documents, purchases, photos, social media and work accounts.”

A longer password, he said, protects both privacy and information, and the campaign is advising the use of passsentences. These are short sentences that are easy to remember and safer than an ordinary password because of its length.

Using punctuation marks, figures and capital letters also helps, said Van Heurck, who advised users not to use simple words like “Belgium” as password, but a sentence like “BelgiumToTheEuro16!”. Cert.be also recommends a separate passsentence for every site, to never share them and to never write them down or save them on a computer or other device.

A recent survey among 1,000 Belgians showed that about half are worried about their online safety. About 46%, however, don’t use passwords longer than eight characters, and one in three Belgians shares their passwords.

The campaign is supported by the Cyber Security Coalition, a partnership of 50 organisations from the academic, government and business sectors in the fight against cybercrime.

Photo: Ingimage