These days, our world is managed by log-ins. We have log-ins for banks, we have log-ins for websites and we even have log-ins to get into our computers. On top of that, we’re supposed to remember phone numbers and our wife’s birthday. Impossible! So, in order to stay married and secure at the same time, I am offering some password tips to make sure you get logged in without getting locked out.
Super Password Tip #1
Don’t write it down and keep it anywhere near your computer. I know I didn’t have to tell our faithful readers this common sense tidbit, but I wanted to get it out of the way before we proceeded. If you live alone in a cave on some remote island on which you are the only resident, then okay, you can write the password down. Otherwise, please proceed to Super Password Tip #2.
Super Password Tip #2
Do not use any real words. Passwords like “aardvark” or “cat” are useless to anyone determined to get into your PC. There are programs that can use brute-force methods, which use dictionary attacks to check every word in the dictionary against your password. If you feel compelled to use “cat” consider adding a prefix of numbers and symbols to the word. For instance, “#19!cat” is much more secure than just “cat.” Longer words with more numbers and symbols would be better. But what we’ve done is turn a normal word into gibberish that makes sense to us but will not be easily cracked by an attacker. It would be better to use that technique with at least a six-letter word with six symbols and numbers in front of it.
Super Password Tip #3
Another popular tip is to create a pass phrase and use the first letter of each word as your password. For instance: “I went for a walk because I am too fat and lazy.” This would translate into the password “IwfawbIa2fal.” Complete and utter gibberish and difficult to crack. You will also notice that I replaced the word “too” with “2″ just to add a number into the password.
Super Password Tip #4
If you go to a lot of different websites, don’t use the same password for each log-in. You can use the backwards spelling of the name as the password. For fun, you can put a number in front of it. For example, if I want to log-in to my hotmail account, I can use the password “9liamtoh.” It’s not a word and I can’t forget it because it has the name of the website right in the password itself!
SuperPassword Tip #5
Complex keyboard combinations are a great way to make a hard password you can remember anywhere. You can come up with a simple pattern on the keyboard, then hold the shift key and do it again. For example, if you type 1234567890 and then hold the shift key, you get 1234567890!@#$% ^&*()z. You can see I also threw a letter on the end, too. We’ve now taken a simple combination of keys and turned it into a whacky and secure password.
You can use password generators, as well, but then you’ll be getting into long passwords you will not be able to remember. The key is having a difficult password you can manage in your daily life. Losing a password generated by one of those programs could prove catastrophic if you ever lose it. So take the Sticky-notes with your passwords written on them off of your monitor and use one of these techniques to reclaim your life and your sanity.
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