How to Create Strong Passwords!
Your passwords are the keys you use to access personal information that you've stored in the Online Database.
If criminals or other malicious users steal this information, they can use your name to CANCEL your Account, Use Your Credits, etc. In many cases you would not notice these attacks until it was too late.
Fortunately, it is not hard to create strong passwords and keep them well protected.
What makes a strong password
To an attacker, a strong password should appear to be a random string of characters. The following criteria can help your passwords do so:
Make it lengthy. Each character that you add to your password increases the protection that it provides many times over. Your passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or longer is ideal.
Combine letters, numbers, and UPPER and lowercase letters - NO SPACES OR SPECIAL CHARACTERS like + = &, etc... The greater variety of characters that you have in your password, the harder it is to guess. Other important specifics include:
• The fewer types of characters in your password, the longer it must be. A 15-character password composed only of random letters and numbers is about 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard. If you do not create a password that contains many types of characters, you need to make it considerably longer to get the same degree of protection. An ideal password combines both length and different types of characters like upper and lowercase letters and numbers.
Use words and phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess. The easiest way to remember your passwords and pass phrases is to write them down. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with writing passwords down, but they need to be adequately protected in order to remain secure and effective.
In general, passwords written on a piece of paper are more difficult to compromise across the Internet than a password manager, Web site, or other software-based storage tool, such as password managers.
Create a strong, memorable password in 4 easy steps
Use these steps to develop a strong password:
1.
Think of a sentence that you can remember. This will be the basis of your strong password or pass phrase. Use a memorable sentence, such as "My father Clay is sixty years old."
2.
Convert it to a password. Take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you've created to create a new, nonsensical word. Using the example above, you'd get: "mfcisyo".
3.
Add complexity by mixing uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers.
4.
That's it! You should be good to go now.
Password strategies to avoid
Some common methods used to create passwords are easy to guess by criminals. To avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:
• Avoid sequences or repeated characters. "12345678," "222222," "abcdefg," or adjacent letters on your keyboard do not help make secure passwords.
• Avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols. Criminals and other malicious users who know enough to try and crack your password will not be fooled by common look-alike replacements, such as to replace an 'i' with a '1'. But these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in case, to improve the strength of your password.
• Avoid your login name. Any part of your name, birthday, social security number, or similar information for your loved ones constitutes a bad password choice. This is one of the first things criminals will try.
• Avoid dictionary words in any language. Criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly guess passwords that are based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions. This includes all sorts of profanity and any word you would not say in front of your children.
• Use more than one password everywhere. If any one of the computers or online systems using this password is compromised, all of your other information protected by that password should be considered compromised as well. It is critical to use different passwords for different systems.
• Avoid using online storage. If malicious users find these passwords stored online or on a networked computer, they have access to all your information.
