Get Safe Online is a UK government-backed campaign that aims to encourage folk to consider their safety online. Apparently some 2.7 million Facebook users are still revealing information (date of birth, contact details) that is a gift to even the less professional and more opportunist fraudsters. So as well as reminding us that we don't want tickets to Australia on our Visa bills they're taking the opportunity to remind us all that crappy passwords aren't doing us any favours either.
So even though this might be, in the words of my friend Andrew, teaching my grandchildren to suck lemon sherbet, here are five tips for creating a virtually hackproof password. If it's not relevant to you, pass it on to someone to whom it might be. See? We do cut out and keep; don't say we never give you nothin'.
1. Your cat's name is not unique. Leave it alone. Ditto your name, your birthday, your mum's maiden name or your birthday.
2. Don't use a dictionary word. They can be cracked with clever - and even not-so-clever - password hacking programs.
3. That doesn't mean using "Qwerty", one of the most popular passwords on the block. Consecutive letters are generally a no-no as they're easily guessed.
4. Use a combination of upper and lower case, and letters and numbers. If non-alphanumeric symbols are permitted, throw a few of those in. Make it as nonsensical as possible, even to you. And if you do need to write it down, try not to do it on a piece of paper entitled "Internet Banking Passwords"...
5. Now is not the time to be restrained. Many sites will have a minimum length password, few have a maximum. Length is in your favour as it increases the myriad of combinations that would have to be tried out before you could be cracked.
Look, I know you're probably going to carry on using "Flopsy1984" as a password. We've all been there. Just don't say you weren't warned.
Good advice, but people are lazy. The only way to remember all those strong passwords (because you do have a different one for every site right?) is, well, to not have to remember them at all.
Store them in a safe place (safe = a password maanger, safe doesn't = gmail, excel files, postits) and look the up when you need them.
I run a password manager online, so my opinion is biased. But definitely look into password managers in general. It's not just safer, it's also more convenient since most come with some form of auto-login feature that lets you even skip the "look it up" part. Just press a button and go.
There are a few different articles here on getting started:
http://tinyurl.com/yrnnb4
Cheers,
Tara
will that be my password
will this be mi password