Protecting your personal information

With a rash of recent cyberattacks on hospitals, schools, and companies large and small, it’s recommended we consider abandoning the use of passwords and instead, switch to using passphrases. Computer security expert Jesse La Grew says the old way of creating short, cryptic passwords that you change frequently is no longer practical for most Minnesotans:

“If we have to change our passwords every 30 days, what are we likely to do? We’re likely to write it down,” La Grew says. “We’re going to be putting them on Post-it notes or putting them under keyboards.”

The longer the password, the more secure it should be from hackers. Some computer systems require passwords that need to be between 16 and 20 characters, which is where using a passphrase is handy.