Americans Aren’t Doing Enough to Protect Their Privacy Online

In a cautionary article on Forbes.com. Bill Hardekopf reports that Americans are over-confident about how secure their passwords are. He refers to a study by Avast that finds “Nearly every American consumer (98%) believes they are creating safe passwords, but a recent study shows that only 6% are actually doing so.”

It is a fair assumption that Americans aren’t unique and that this is a worldwide problem.

Most people use passwords of 8 characters or less and limit the characters to letters and numbers, although using Capital letters, small letters, numbers and special characters together in a password makes it much stronger.

The primary excuse people give for the simplicity of their passwords in that the more commplex ones are harder to remember. Yes, they often are, but they are easier to break, too.

Read the whole article here: Americans Aren’t Doing Enough to Protect Their Privacy Online.