Strong passwords have a combination of lower and upper case letters, numbers or other symbols, and most importantly, they don’t make sense to anyone but the creator. The trick is to create strong passwords that can actually be remembered. I recommend a strategy rather than a password program.
Do not pick a word. Come up with a scheme that generates seemingly random letters. One favorite technique is to think of a song that you like. Recite the lyrics to the song. Lately, I have had Peter, Paul, and Mary’s The Marvelous Toy stuck in my head. The lyrics start like this: “When I Was Just A Wee Little Lad" (Poems, books, and quotes could also be used this way.)
Then choose the first, last, or every nth letter of each word. I tend to choose the first letter. Write those letters out: WIwjawll -That’s a good start of a password. There’s a couple of uppercase letters, a couple of lower case letters, and it doesn’t make any sense. It looks random.
Next, add some numbers or symbols to your password. One simple way to do this is to replace small l’s with number 1’s and e’s with 3’s, etcetera.
Another way to add numbers to your password is to come up with some numbers that mean something to you, but are not:
- Your birthday
- Your spouse’s birthday
- Your children’s birthday
- Your phone number
- Your social security
What’s left after that? Well, there’s several numbers left over:
- The address of the house you grew up in
- Your dog’s birthday
- Your great grandma’s age at death
- The year your grandmother, mother, father, or grandfather were born
- Your parent’s anniversary
Or, you could pick a short word and pick the numbers off a telephone. For example, dog is 364.
After you’ve picked your “random” letters and your “random” numbers, put them together.
So, I might have a password of WIwjawll364 or 364WIwjaw.
What makes these passwords strong?
- They are not in a dictionary.
- The words are not on the About section of your web page.
- The words are not in any public records about you.
- The possible combinations have gone up tremendously. Instead of your birthday (1 possible day), if you use a great grandparent’s birthday you have 8 possible combinations. If you use your anniversary, you have one number. If you use your grandparent’s anniversary, you have 2 possible numbers.
Strong passwords require CPU time to crack. Most hackers prefer easy-to-access accounts rather than having their computer chug away at it for hours.
Labels: how to, password, strong, virtual assistant
