Password Security!
Strong passwords do not have to be difficult to remember.
We've all been there. It's time to change your password on one of your many online or work accounts, and you have no idea what to do. Do I add in symbols to make it harder to crack? What about numbers? I know, how about some punctuation!? After all of that, you change the password satisfied your account is safe. In fact, it's so safe you have forgotten the password by the next day!Recent conventional wisdom was to replace some of the letters, such as an "l" (el), with the number "1". You might also swap out "a" with the "@" symbol. Another trick is to change "o" (oh) with a "0" (zero). Your password might end up looking like this: P@ssw0rd!. As you can see, this will get confusing rather fast. Now you can see why passwords are forgotten, or worse yet written down right next to the computer.
You might even bounce the other direction. Why try and remember difficult passwords. My dog's name will be sufficient. Well, hackers know this all too well, and will browse social networks looking for information to crack accounts. Oh look, Sally has an AOL email account and her dog's name is Brandy. Let's see if Brandy (or a form of it) is the password to her AOL account. Voila! Sandy's account is now being used to deliver spam (and possibly a virus) to everyone in your address book. (I actually found a user with the password 1234!)
Google reveals the 10 worst password ideas.
- Pet names
- A notable date, such as a wedding anniversary
- A family member’s birthday
- Your child’s name
- Another family member’s name
- Your birthplace
- A favorite holiday
- Something related to your favorite sports team
- The name of a significant other
- The word “Password”
On top of that, many do not use different passwords for different types of accounts. Why use the same password for your email account that you do for your bank. If one gets cracked then the other is vulnerable.
There are a lot of people explaining why longer passwords are better, but I feel the comic site XKCD.com does it best. Use a pass phrase instead of a random bunch of letters, numbers, and symbols to protect your data.
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| http://xkcd.com/936/ |
Yes, the math can get in the way, but having a higher entropy is better. If the system you are creating a password for will accept a longer password then why not try a longer password phrase? It will be easier to remember for you, and harder for the cracker to break. Even though the words are simple, the cracker has no idea if he gets any one of the words correct. The whole password must be guessed (cracked) to obtain access.
Additional Info:
If you still would like to use a random bunch of letters, numbers, and symbols then try these guys:https://www.grc.com/passwords.htm
This password generator will give you a VERY secure password. It will be hard to remember but very hard to crack.
One the same site, there is also a password checker:
https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm
And Microsoft also has a password strength checker:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx
The bottom line is security is up to you. Create long passwords to thwart attacks, and do not use the same passwords across multiple accounts.
