How to create a secure password
Hi again,Â
And now onto part two of our series of blogs on passwords. If I don’t post this now while I’m thinking of it I’ll forget for about 2 days 
I’ve worked in IT management and IT support over the years. The one thing that never ceased to amaze me was how careless people were with their passwords. They had a real ’so what’ attitude to the whole concept of security. If it didn’t affect their lives then they simply didn’t care. That was unti one of two things happened:
1. They forgot their password and needed it reset
2. Their system was compromised because they’d used a “weak” password.
What do I mean by weak password? Believe it or not many people use “password” as their password. Or their first name or words like love, their hobby, the deparment they work in etc. All of the above are crazy choices - they’re far too easy to guess!
There’s 5 basic tips you need for creating a great password and here they are:
1. Your password must be alphanumeric. That simply means a mixture of numbers and letters such as xpf2778z. Why? When a hacker tries to break into a system they often use what are called dictionary or brute force hacks. A dictionary hack is an application that simply uses standard words and word combinations in an attempt to guess your password. In our previous example of “password” being used as the password a brute force or disctionary hack would guess this in seconds. Using alphanumeric passwords increases the number of possible password combinations by millions.
2. It should be 6 - 8 characters in length. The longer the password the harder it is for a hacking program to get around. If your password was abc then there are 6 possible password combinations. If your password was abc123 there are now over 720 password combinations possible. If your password was abc1234 there are now almost 6,000 possible combinations. This is just basic math - the longer the password the more possible combinations there are.
3. Never use personal details in your password. People often use their home address, their age, husband or wives name, their social security number or their date of birth. These are incredibly easy to get access to by either a fellow employee or potential system hacker. Your password needs to be secure and hard to guess. Personal details meet neither of these criteria.
4. Do not write your password down anywhere. Keeping a record of your password for somebody to find is as dangerous as keeping a copy of your ATM pin number in your wallet beside your ATM card. Create a memorable password that you’ll have no problem recalling. This is not as hard as it sounds and if you jot some password ideas down you’ll quickly come up with some good ones. Obviously burn the piece of paper you jotted your ideas down on.
5. Do not use the same password for more than 180 days. Create several variants of the same password and recycle them every 180 days. This adds an extra layer of security to your data. By recycling your password frequently you make your data 1000% more secure. You’ll notice that most large corporates force their employees to change their password every month (at least) for this exact reason.
Hopefully this will make your job of creating a new password so much easier.
Until the next time
Niall