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Password Safety

By Whitney Lemon

Lesson Highlight: Keep your business accounts secure with strong passwords

On top of that, many people use the same, easy-to-guess password. According to this CBS news story, the most common passwords of 2013 were: “123456,” “password,” and “12345678.”

Online security is an important topic for everyone, including small businesses new to the web. There are steps you can take to protect yourself and your online accounts. How? Create strong, secure passwords. It’s the simplest, and perhaps the most important thing you can do to protect yourself online.

Many people use one password for all their online accounts. That’s like using one key for everything: your home, car, office, etc.

If you are using any of these passwords for your accounts, please speed-read through this post then change your passwords to make them secure. Here are tips from Google’s Safety Center: 

  • keys2.pngLonger passwords are harder to crack. On average, people create passwords with less than 8 characters. A shorter password is easier to remember, but it’s also easier for humans and machines to guess.
  • Create a password that uses a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols.
  • Make sure you have password recovery options set, and keep them up-to-date. If you ever forget your password, most online services offer an option to recover it via email or text message.
  • If write your passwords down on paper, keep them in a very secret place.

Friday 15: Small Business Tips, is a series designed to help small businesses like yours make the most of their online presence. If you missed the October post about hiring a company to help with search engine optimization, check it out here: https://americassbdc.org/hiring-an-expert-to-manage-your-search-engine-presence/

You can read the full lessons and view more tips for growing your business online at www.gybo.com/friday15. Don’t forget to sign up to receive new lessons directly in your inbox, and make it a habit to grow your business online with Friday 15.

On behalf of the entire Get Your Business Online team, I wish you great success growing your business.

Whitney Lemon – Friday 15 Host, Google Small Business Engagement

BIO: Whitney hosts Friday 15: Small Business Tips, Google’s series to help small businesses succeed online, in 15 minutes or less.  Friday 15 is part of Google’s Get Your Business Online program, providing small businesses with a custom domain name and web hosting – free for one year.

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