passwords

Being Secure on the Internet

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Password

In previous posts, I have written about passwords and how to overcome the perennial problem of how to create a password that is secure yet memorable. The trick I like is to find a name that you’ll never forget and apply a few encryption tricks to it.

Suppose you love the television program, Downton Abbey.

First, create some rules. For example, a space is always a dollar sign; an “A” is an @; and an “o” is a %.

So, Downton Abbey becomes, D%wnt%n$@bbey. That’s tough to decode.

But suppose your favorite store (Amazon, for example) gets hacked. You probably have less to worry about on Amazon because they will probably clean up their act pretty quickly. But you might have a string of problems because you may have used your password on a number of other sites.

A colleague, Linda Link, had an excellent idea. She suggests making your passwords unique for every site with a system that might look like this:

  1. Pick a letter to start your passwords (such as “B”).
  2. Add a non-alphanumeric key (such as “*”).
  3. Now add the first four letters of the site. For example, “TARG” for Target.
  4. Now add your cryptic password.

So your password for Target would be:

B*TARGD%wnt%n$@bbey

Unique for Target. Highly cryptic. And once you know your system, fairly easy to remember.

 

Improving Your Passwords

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StrongPassword

In a previous article, I discussed the need to be careful about passwords and how to avoid using some of the most commonly used passwords.

This often presents a dilemma. If I choose a really good and cryptic password (lMp53!x7), will I remember it? If I choose a really bad password (iloveyou), will I become vulnerable to cyber crime?

The best solution to the problem is to use a password management system, which I will discuss in a later article. The next best solution is to create a number of passwords that you will remember but will be hard to crack.

Let’s say that your favorite film is Gone With the Wind.

First, replace the spaces with a non-alphanumeric character. Then you have:

Gone#With#the#Wind

Then capitalize the last letter of all words and not the first:

gonE#witH#thE#winD

Then pretend that the “i” key doesn’t work on your keyboard. So you are going to use “1” instead:

gonE#w1tH#thE#w1nD

Your keyboard is pretty bad. So you have to substitute your “o” with “0” (“oh” with “zero”):

g0nE#w1tH#thE#w1nD

Finally, add the birth year of your dog:

g0nE#w1tH#thE#w1nD2008

And you have a pretty strong password and a good chance of remembering it. Keep your little “rules” consistent, and you’ll be able to create a number of secure passwords that mix upper case, lower case, and non-alphanumeric characters.

And please don’t use any of the codes suggested here. Invent your own!

Not perfect! But better than your son’s name and birth year (Thomas2004). And much better than what almost everyone else does!

Improving Your Personal Password Policy

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TypingPassword

Just imagine this. Suppose the password you use for your e-mail provider was stolen. How horrible would the consequences be?

Unfortunately many of us use the same password for many different web sites and services, use passwords that are easy to crack, and rarely change our passwords.

So, perhaps a crook might take the password you use to access your email and create havoc. Perhaps the password would let the person shop at Amazon, bid on auctions at eBay, and even transfer money from your bank account.

Here are a few tips that you can use that will make it a lot more difficult to ruin your life if a password becomes compromised:

  1. Make sure your passwords contain a mixture of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.
  2. Change your passwords regularly.
  3. Make sure your passwords are fairly long (at least eight characters).
  4. Avoid using the names of your children, pets, spouses, and lovers — even if you like them!
  5. Avoid any word that can be found in the dictionary — even foreign ones.
  6. Never use social security numbers, telephone numbers, or dates.
  7. Don’t even think about making your password the same as your user name.
  8. Don’t use the name of the website. (Amazon is a really bad password!)
  9. Use a different password for each site.
  10. Never use one of the most commonly used passwords!

The top ten most commonly used passwords are

  1. 123456
  2. password
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. abc123
  6. 123456789
  7. 111111
  8. 1234567
  9. iloveyou
  10. adobe123

Only one of the top ten is in the dictionary!

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