In an age of multiplying cyber security issues, gone are the days of "1234567" or birthday date passwords. Mustafa Abdallah, professor of computer and information technology, tells us what to do instead, where to store passwords and which other safety measures there are.

As cyber security threats continue to evolve, experts recommend adopting stronger and more varied passwords. Mustafa Abdallah, a professor at Purdue University, advises using different, hard-to-guess passwords for each account or device as a primary defense strategy.

Abdallah also highlights the effectiveness of two-factor authentication and suggests that storing passwords in browsers or reputable third-party applications is generally safe. However, he cautions against saving passwords in unsecured locations such as text files, as these are more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Other ongoing cyber security concerns include phishing, viruses, and data leaks.

How to keep your passwords really safe: advice from an expert

Are your passwords really safe? As cyber security keeps evolving, so does the need to change and strengthen passwords. Mustafa Abdullah, professor of computer and information technology at Purdue University in the United States, explains the do's and don'ts for keeping personal accounts and information safe. So I think that the best practice is to have different passwords, but each password is strong and, you know, strongly structured and hard-to-guess password. And based on that, you have these, you know, two good defence strategies. First, many different passwords on different devices and, you know, hard-to-guess password on each device or platform or account. Aside from having different and long passwords, there's also another way. Two-factor authentication is currently seen as one of the most efficient measures of increasing cyber security. But for those using conventional passwords, there's also the question of where to store them safely. So when it comes to having the password stored in browser or third-party apps, my perspective or my opinion is that it is generally safe to have those passwords saved in these browsers and third-party applications because they are generally safe and secure and they are built in in these platforms or, you know, like Windows or other operating systems in a secure way. So I think it is generally safe to use that. But also one other thing I would like to note that it is not safe or it is not recommended to save the passwords in unsecured places, like not apps or some text files, because these are the places that any virus or any cyber attack will first, you know, get and compromise. Keeping passwords safe is not the only ongoing concern in cyber security. Phishing attempts, computer viruses and personal data leaks are all daily challenges for users around the world.

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