Basic Computer Instruction
9/03/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/04/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/07/09 Holiday Labor Day
9/10/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/11/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/14/09 Search Engines/Google
9/17/09 Search Engines/Google
9/18/09 Search Engines/Google
9/21/09 Password Protection
9/24/09 Password Protection
9/25/09 Password Protection
9/28/09 Laptop Orientation
EACH CLASS WILL BE OF ONE HOUR DURATION
CLASSES START AT 6PM AND FINISH AT 7PM
FRIDAY CLASSES WILL START AT 2PM AND FINISH AT 3PM
9/03/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/04/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/07/09 Holiday Labor Day
9/10/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/11/09 Basic Computing and E-Mail
9/14/09 Search Engines/Google
9/17/09 Search Engines/Google
9/18/09 Search Engines/Google
9/21/09 Password Protection
9/24/09 Password Protection
9/25/09 Password Protection
9/28/09 Laptop Orientation
EACH CLASS WILL BE OF ONE HOUR DURATION
CLASSES START AT 6PM AND FINISH AT 7PM
FRIDAY CLASSES WILL START AT 2PM AND FINISH AT 3PM
Posts
Strong passwords: How to create and use them
ReplyDeletePublished: March 22, 2006
Your passwords are the keys you use to access personal information that you've stored on your computer and in your online accounts.
If criminals or other malicious users steal this information, they can use your name to open new credit card accounts, apply for a mortgage, or pose as you in online transactions. 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.
Many systems also support use of the space bar in passwords, so you can create a phrase made of many words (a "pass phrase"). A pass phrase is often easier to remember than a simple password, as well as longer and harder to guess.
Combine letters, numbers, and symbols. 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 cannot create a password that contains symbols, you need to make it considerably longer to get the same degree of protection. An ideal password combines both length and different types of symbols.
Use the entire keyboard, not just the most common characters. Symbols typed by holding down the "Shift" key and typing a number are very common in passwords. Your password will be much stronger if you choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row of the keyboard, and any symbols unique to your language.
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 6 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 son Aiden is three years old."
2. Check if the computer or online system supports the pass phrase directly. If you can use a pass phrase (with spaces between characters) on your computer or online system, do so.
3. If the computer or online system does not support pass phrases, 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: "msaityo".
4. Add complexity by mixing uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It is valuable to use some letter swapping or misspellings as well. For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Aiden's name, or substituting the word "three" for the number 3. There are many possible substitutions, and the longer the sentence, the more complex your password can be. Your pass phrase might become "My SoN Ayd3N is 3 yeeRs old." If the computer or online system will not support a pass phrase, use the same technique on the shorter password. This might yield a password like "MsAy3yo".