Strong passwords and locked doors
A strong, unique password is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to protect your accounts. A second login step makes them even harder to break into.
A password is a secret word or phrase you use to prove an account belongs to you. Think of it like the key to your front door. You wouldn't hand out copies of your house key to strangers, and you wouldn't use the exact same key for your house, your bike lock and your locker. Passwords work the same way.
What makes a password strong?
A strong password is long, hard for someone else to guess, and used for one account only. A short word, like your pet's name, is easy for a computer program to guess by trying thousands of common words in seconds.
A good trick is to use a passphrase instead of a single word: several random words strung together, like "purple-couch-lizard-7". It's longer, which makes it much harder to guess, but it can still be easier for you to remember than a jumble of random letters.
Build a passphrase using this pattern: pick a color, an animal, and a number that means something to you but that others wouldn't guess. Put them together with dashes between them. Don't use your real passphrase for anything important yet. This is just practice with the pattern.
Why shouldn't I reuse the same password everywhere?
If you use the same password on every account and just one of those websites gets broken into, whoever stole it can now try that same password on all your other accounts. Using a different password for each account means one break-in doesn't put everything else at risk too.
This sounds hard to keep track of, and it is, which is why many people use a password manager: an app that remembers all your passwords for you, locked behind one strong master password. Ask a parent or guardian if your family uses one.
What is a second login step?
Two-factor authentication is a second step to prove it's really you logging in, on top of your password. Usually it's a code sent to your phone or an app, or a text message. Even if someone steals your password, they still can't get into your account without that second code too.
Whenever an account offers to turn this on, it's almost always worth doing, especially for anything important like email or a school account.
- Password
- A secret word or phrase you use to prove an account belongs to you.
- Two-factor authentication
- A second step to prove it's really you logging in, like a code sent to your phone, in addition to your password.
- Username
- The name you use to identify your account, along with your password.
Why is it risky to use the same password on every account?
If one website gets broken into, whoever stole that password can try it on all your other accounts too.
What is a passphrase?
Several random words strung together, which makes a password longer and harder to guess while still being easier to remember.
What does two-factor authentication add on top of a password?
A second step to prove it's really you, like a code sent to your phone.
- A strong password is long and used for one account only.
- A passphrase of a few random words is often easier to remember and harder to guess than a single word.
- Turn on two-factor authentication whenever it's offered, especially for important accounts.