6 Tips For Making Your Passwords Strong

As part of information security at work we got an email about having to change our passwords every 120 days and tips for making strong passwords. (No, Beaded Tail, just because you can't remember it doesn't necessarily mean it is strong. A skilled hacker could figure it out!) When reviewing all my personal passwords, I was a bit surprised that out of 50, only 12 met these requirements! I thought my readers may find this information enlightening and helpful as well so am sharing it with you. It's definitely time for me to change my passwords even though it's a pain.

1. Do NOT use a dictionary word as your password. (If you must, string several together) 


2. Do NOT use standard number substitutions. Think "P455w0rd" is a good password? N0p3! Here I thought I was being so clever and that I had a very strong password by doing this but cracking tools now have those built in. 


3. Make it long. (The longer, the better!) Today's processing speeds mean that even a short weird password like "h6!r$q" is quickly crackable!


4. Use different passwords. If one is hacked, and you use it on all or many of your accounts, the hacker then has access to all of them! This would be very bad!


5. Give bogus answers to security questions but make your answers memorable. Think of them as a secondary password.


6. Use a mix of Alpha, Numeric, Capital letters and Special Characters.

Here's a couple things you can do to protect against hackers:

1. Use a unique, secure email address for password recoveries. If a hacker knows where your password reset goes, that's a line of attack. Create a special account you never use for communications and make sure to choose a username that isn't tied to your name so it can't be easily guessed.


2. Opt out of Spokeo and WhitePages.com. One of the easiest ways to hack into an account is through your email and billing address information.

Now, are you going to actually use this information to improve your security? Maybe it's time for you to replace your passwords with some new ones. Let the fun begin!

Source:  Tips from Wired magazine, December, "Kill The Password"

Share this: