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There will soon be major promotions by online companies for the upcoming holiday shopping season. The holiday season is a prime opportunity for identity thieves to target consumers. With the growth of online shopping, millions of individuals are potentially exposed to online fraudsters. The first line of defense against online attacks is strong passwords.

The IRS cautions taxpayers to take a few simple steps to protect your passwords, which can in turn protect sensitive financial information from identity thieves. Protecting personal information makes it more difficult for an identity thief to file a fraudulent tax return on a taxpayer’s behalf.

Cybersecurity experts have changed their strategies for passwords. Previously, they suggested complex passwords that were different for every online account. Because most individuals have accounts for financial services, social media, online shopping and other purposes, the number of complex passwords was too great. 

As a result, many security experts now recommend longer phrases such as “SomethingYouCanRemember@30.” The IRS offers nine tips to help you protect your online accounts. 

• Password Length – Create a password with eight or more characters.

• Combination – Use upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols in your password.

• Personal Information – Do not use your city, street, or other personal information in a password. This information is widely available to identity thieves.

• Default Password – Do not use “password” for your password. Change all default passwords.

• Reuse of Passwords – Do not use the same or similar passwords for multiple accounts. For example, avoid “Begood!17, Begood!18 and Begood!19” as your passwords.

• Email Address – Do not use your email address in a password. This email address is easily known by fraudsters.

• Security – If you have a written list of passwords, store them in a safe or locked file cabinet.

• Disclosure – Never give out passwords over the internet. Be on guard if an email sender claims to be from your bank, the IRS or your employer.

• Password Manager – Consider using a password manager program. Do a search to find password programs for multiple devices. The best password programs typically have 256-bit encryption.