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90% of Internet users ignore how to create a secure password

After the wave of hacks and massive leaks of the last months -Twitter has been the last to be affected at the beginning of this May-, the insurance comparator Acierto.com has made a report that reveals some risk behaviors among Spanish Internet users to make users aware of the importance of carrying out a responsible and safe attitude in the network.

Related And it is that Spain is the European country where more is surfed on the Internet, where 33 million navigators are already exceeded and that has a smartphone penetration rate of more than 80%.However, many users do not act responsibly.They do not keep their equipment up to date, but ignore how it should be a secure password.Specifically, two out of five ignore notifications of automatic update of your computer, and up to 89% do not know how to create a secure password that protects your data, but only 8% are aware of their own ignorance .The rest believe it is enough that it does not contain the user or alternate capital letters and numbers.


A good password, however, should not only combine capital letters and numbers, but also lowercase letters and symbols or punctuation marks; and have more than eight characters in length (the longer, the more secure).In addition, you should dispense with the name of the service itself, as well as obvious data such as name, year of birth, foul words and the like.Another recurring failure is use it for all services .A good alternative is to use a password manager.


80% of Spaniards almost never change their password


Acierto.com's analysis, on the other hand, shows that Spanish Internet users are also unaware of the importance of changing this password regularly, at least every six months.Unfortunately, only 20 % of users respect this margin.Here those who do it every week (a small 7%) and those who spend half a year (13%) have a place.The rest of the respondents acknowledged never doing so (16,7 %), almost never (30.7%) or very occasionally (32.4%).


The consequences? According to the insurance comparator data, more than half of the Spanish have been affected by some computer virus .The main protagonist was malware, responsible for the infection on 1 in 5 occasions.Phishing, interestingly, occupies the latter position in this ranking, as it was the cause of only 2% of the cases referred.


Basic online security tips


Beyond passwords, there are a number of key premises to protect us online.To begin with, we should opt for secure connections, that is, avoid public WiFi and the like.Review the privacy policies and configure options on apps and social platforms, do not download files or apps from senders and unknown providers, disable unnecessary browser add-ons and make backup copies are other recommendations.


On the other hand and on the occasion of Internet Day, in addition to talks and round tables, there have been many shops and stores that have decided to reward purchases through their websites with online discounts; an initiative that has been forging years and that triggers sales on the network, however, to carry out these types of transactions safely there are a number of basic rules.


alert against doubtful offers


For starters, distrust all those chain messages through WhatsApp that offer dubious offers .This type of links can not only redirect the user to fraudulent portals, fake Facebook pages and the like ; but also download a file that infects your device.To avoid it and in the cases mentioned, check the name of the url, verify that the site connects to the Internet through the https protocol and verify that it has the Facebook trust seal will be key As for promotions, there is nothing like going to the browser to search for the offer before clicking on it and, of course, spreading it.

Compare online-there are already nine out of ten Spaniards who do it before buying-it will also be useful.And if it is too late and we have been victims of this type of fraud, inform the bank and denounce through the Office of Telematic Crimes of the Civil Guard will be essential to prevent its spread.

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