Passwords Part 2
Today we will talk about how to create powerful passwords that will not be hard to remember.
Here are some simple ideas that may not be super strong but are a great start for those who have been using their birthday or their wife's/husband's name or, according to a prominent password company, one of the top three passwords of 2013 are "123456," "password" and "12345678." Good grief!!!
And the worst part is that those three passwords have not changed since the year before except that "123456" over took "password" to become #1.
Let's change that right now.
#1 Pick a sentence and reduce it to first letters of each word only: "What goes up must come down" becomes "WgUmCd". Alternating the case is a great method also.
#2 Replace letters with numbers: "faster" becomes "f4s73r". This should be longer but you get the idea.
#3 Reverse spell words: "management" becomes "tnemeganam".
These by themselves are not very strong but if you combine them together you get a medium strength one:
The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over The Lazy Dog
TQBFJOTLD or TqBfJoTlD or 7q8fJ071D or D170Jf8q7.
Pick your level of comfort.
That seems simple so what's missing for an even stronger password? Let's add some other changes.
#4 For you typists out there, with a password that only consists of letters to begin with, try moving your Home Row up or down one and shift up anything that falls outside on the missing row. For example if you moved your home row up you would be typing into the numbers row and negating what was on your bottom row. If a password needs a letter from the bottom row you would use it but using your Shift key. Likewise, if you move your home row down you would use capitals from the top row.
You can also type with your regular home row but one key to the right or left. This combined with the three other ideas above will make a great password.
Ok great you have a password that is strong now how do you use it everywhere on the net and keep it different for each site?
We will look at that tomorrow.