By: Teressa Gehrke
NFBPWC Digital Training Special Committee Chair

Passwords & Password Management

 

It’s Time to Upgrade Your Passwords 

Have you ever wondered if your personal details are on the dark web? How 

quickly can a bad hacker crack the code of your password? On June 23, 2024, Teressa Gehrke, NFBPWC Digital Training Chair presented 

“The Importance of Passwords & Password Management” to members. She discussed the basics of passwords and how to manage them using a Password Manager. In her presentation, she showed the

 following Password Table provided by Hive Systems. Hive Systems puts out a table every year indicating the time it takes a hacker to brute force your password.  

Brute Force is a means of an attacker excessively attempting to use commonly used passwords or passphrases to crack someone’s password in an attempt to gain access to a user’s personal and confidential information.  

Based on the table you can see the duration of how long it takes to crack a password. Each year, it gets faster. This is why using strong passwords that are at a minimum 12 characters long, and preferably 16 characters, using numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols is preferred. In addition, using a Password Manager is highly recommended because one simply cannot remember hundreds of passwords alone. It’s also recommended that each password for each account is unique. If one password is breached and it is used across multiple platforms, there is a higher likelihood that you will be compromised elsewhere. What if it's an Amazon account or your retirement fund account? You may never recover those funds.  

During the presentation, members visited the site Have I Been Pwned. (Yes, it’s spelled correctly.) www.haveibeenpwned.com. Members could type in their email or phone number and see if their personal information had been compromised in a security incident.   

Now what?  

If you see your information has been breached, go back to your account and reset your password and begin using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), sometimes called Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). It adds a second layer of security to your username and password. There’s a link to the presentation and the webinar recording below. For additional assistance or questions, please email: digitaltraining@nfbpwc.org.  

Presentation: The Importance of Passwords & Password Management PDF 

Webinar Recording: Importance of Passwords and Password Management 

About Teressa Gehrke 

Teressa Gehrke is the Founder & CEO of PopCykol, a cybersecurity awareness company designed for families and kids. PopCykol stands for Protecting Our Precious Curious Kids Online. PopCykol teaches cybersecurity concepts in a fun, easy, and interactive style. 

She has worked in cybersecurity since 2014 as a technical writer, user experience manager, and project manager. She has taught cybersecurity at local colleges. Teressa has a B.A. in Art History and Anthropology. She earned a Master’s in Genetic Anthropology and International Development from Colorado State University and advanced her education studying Network Security at Arapahoe Community College. She is the President of Business & Professional Women of Colorado - Denver chapter, and Digital Training Chair for the National Federation of Business & Professional Women's Clubs. In her free time, she enjoys swimming, stand up paddleboarding, painting, singing, songwriting, and drumming.