The shocking way to to make your password stronger

TECH

Need a stronger password? Experts say to use emojis.

On a computer, it turns out that emoticons are considered a symbol, which can beef up your passwords and make them more secure in combination with letters and numbers.

Stan Kaminsky Kaspersky

“When intruders try to brute-force a password containing letters, numbers and punctuation marks, there are fewer than a hundred variations for each symbol they need to pick.”

Stan Kaminsky Kaspersky

“But there are more than 3,600 standardized emojis in Unicode, so adding one to your password forces hackers to go through around 3,700 variants per symbol.”

Even better, emojis might be easier to remember than a “jumble” of letters, numbers and punctuation, and they often aren’t used in a “brute-force” attack, which is when hackers attempt to log in to an account using a long list of potential passwords.

However, Kaminsky warned that not every site will allow emojis in passwords, and including many emojis in a passkey could slow down the login process.

He recommended not using emojis that could “give you away”  — such as frequently used emoticons — and encouraged adding one or two emojis to a traditional alphanumeric password.

Stan Kaminsky Kaspersky

“Of course, using emojis is no substitute for traditional security tips: using long passwords, a password manager and two-factor authentication (2FA).”

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