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Updated password guidelines is the topic for day three of Tax Security Awareness Week.
Creating a strong password is important for taxpayers and tax professionals who use online accounts involving financial data. The latest guidance suggests using a passphrase such as a favorite line from a movie or a series of associated words rather than using a password.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST, a branch of the Department of Commerce, suggested these steps to build a better password:
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Leverage your powers of association. Identify associated items that have meaning to you.
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Make the associations unique to you. Passphrases should be words that can go together in your head, but no one else would ever suspect. Good example: Items in your living room such as BlueCouchFlowerBamboo.
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Picture this. Create a passphrase that you can picture in your head. In our example, picture items in your living room. The key is to create a passphrase that is hard for a cybercriminal to guess but easy for you to remember.
In addition to creating strong passwords, the Security Summit urges taxpayers and tax practitioners to take these steps:
- Use a different password or passphrase for each account.
- Use multi-factor authentication whenever possible. Don’t rely on the passphrase alone to protect sensitive data.
- Change all factory-set passwords for wireless devices such as printers and routers.
Taxpayers can visit the “Taxes. Security. Together.” awareness campaign or review IRS Publication 4524, Security Awareness for Taxpayers, for additional steps to protect themselves and their data from identity theft. Tax professionals can get more information through the Protect Your Clients; Protect Yourself campaign as well as the Tax Security 101 series.
The statutory mission of the Iowa Department of Revenue is to serve
Iowans and support state government by collecting all taxes required by
law, but no more.
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