As we move further from a world where your identity is checked by a person before you can withdraw your money, it is more important than ever to have a secure password for your accounts.
Please note that having the same password for all accounts does not count as a secure password. Your password should be different for all accounts.
If you need help creating a strong password, check out this Washington Post article for a few pointers. Basically, your password should include letters of different cases, numbers, and special characters.
And if you don’t think that strong passwords are important to protect your assets, check out this story, I was a Cybercrook for the FBI, on Wired.com. This story is about a Cybercrook living in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. I have lived in this neighborhood and love the neighborhood, it is one of Seattle’s best.
Here is a taste:
It was July 2004 and Brian Campbell had been on Isla Mujeres off the coast of Cancun for three days for a relative’s wedding when he discovered he’d been scammed.
An American MBA student studying in Australia at the time, Campbell (not his real name2) was accustomed to checking his investment portfolio daily over the internet. But the wedding distracted him a couple of days, and when he finally got online, he found he was locked out of his Schwab trading account.
He called Schwab and discovered that his user name and password had been changed. What’s more, $106,000 had recently been wired from his account to a Fortis bank account in Belgium. Campbell hadn’t requested the transfer.
Better get those passwords changed…
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