Password security is a top priority to protect the privacy of your data. Nowadays, our confidential information isn’t locked inside a filing cabinet. Instead we keep private data in password protected files on the hard drive of our computer.

All your confidential business data and other personal information can get exposed to others if you don’t have a secure password to protect it. Read more to find out some tips on how to select a password that is very secure.

Make sure that it is lengthy

Some people make this common mistake by putting a 6 or 7 character password so that they can remember it easily. But this is what makes a password protection system quite vulnerable. Remember, the shorter your password is, the easier it is for an unauthorised user to try every possible combination using a brute force attack.

So always use a password that is at least 10 to 14 characters. A password with 15 characters is 33,000 times stronger than the password with only 8 digits. So have a lengthy password to ensure maximum security.

Using a pass phrase

Some systems may allow you to use spaces in your password. That means you can use a phrase as your password which is known as pass phrase. You can use a sentence that will be easier for you to keep in mind but difficult for someone else to figure out.

For example, if you use ‘I love my hometown’ as your pass phrase, it allows you to use 18 characters (including the space) in your password. It will be much easier for you to keep in mind but more difficult for others to guess.

Do not use sequential characters

Some people think that using ‘456789’ or ‘11335599’ or ‘ijklmn’ is a good password which will be easier to remember but something a hacker or an unauthorized user won’t be able to think of because of its simplicity. This is not necessarily true. Never underestimate the person who is trying to get into your data. They also think the way you do.

So avoid using a particular sequence as your password. If you want to keep a ‘whole digit’ password or a ‘whole alphabetic’ password then do it randomly. It can be like ‘1850739729’ or ‘cqrnyuztpsf’.

Use a complex password

The more complex password you choose, the harder it is for hackers to identify it. The good way to do this is by combining digits, alphabets and some symbols. You can use a very simple word but yet can make it quite complex by including some digits and symbols with it.

For example, ‘f7e$a0t%h1e#r’. Here the word you have chosen is rather simple- ‘feather’. But see how complex it looks when you are adding some digits and symbols with it. It also increases the length of the password which strengthens it.

Never make it relevant

Many people tries to select a secure password by using some relevant information. This is like month and date of your son or daughter’s birth, some parts of the credit card number, digits that involves your road, street and house number, the date, year and month on which you got married etc. This makes a password very weak. When a criminal attempts to breach the password, he tries with this relevant information first. So avoid using such information as your password.

Pages: 1 2

Tags: Secure Passwords

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 8:31 am and is filed under Secure Passwords. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.