Second Life Blog rss - Is your password safe?
It’s officially time to do a reality check on all of your passwords.
Did you see the chaos when high-profile Twitter accounts were recently hijacked and used to send out messages in the names of those folks? How embarrassing.
Cre
1000
ating a Great Password
So, how many of us are using passwords from the list of 500 worst passwords?
Now that you know that “password” isn’t a good choice, here are a few tips for creating a password worth using.
No real words = important. As you saw on the list of 500 worst passwords, most of them are real words, which can be cracked by fraudsters with very little effort. Avoid real words that can be found in a dictionary (in any language) or any proper nouns.
Long passwords = essential. The fewer the characters, the easier it is to compromise. Choose a memorable password that’s at least 8 characters long. To make it even stronger, make it a “pass phrase” instead of a password. “brownfox” is borderline. “thequickbrownfox” is better.
Mixed case = good. This adds another level of difficulty for fraudsters to guess your password. Try changing “thequickbrownfox” to “TheQuickBroWnFox.”
Misspelled = better. While your English teacher wouldn’t approve, misspelling your passwords is a great way to add complexity: “ThuhQueekBroWnFoxE.”
Added numerals and symbols = best. You could mix some numbers in there like “ThuhQueekBr0WnF0
January 17 2009 11:08 am | General