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How To Create A Secure Password


 

How To Create Secure Passwords
Most of us now use Internet banking, buy from websites such as Amazon and have email accounts with the likes of Hotmail or Gmail. All of these need a password but you must understand that passwords need to be as difficult to guess by someone else as possible. This will prevent the chances of someone gaining access to your accounts and either taking money from your account or using your identity to cause fraud.
There are a number of things to consider when creating a password and the main point is: "Could someone easily guess my password?".

Many people will create a password that is easy for them to remember and is usually along the lines of the name of their pet, son / daughter or even a password made up of numbers such as a birthday or phone number.

Whilst these might seem secure, they can be fairly easy to guess, especially by someone who knows you. Even if they don't know you, a patient "hacker" might just try random names until they hit the right one.

It is a little more technical than just guessing. There are hacking programmes that will go through common words and keep trying until the password is found. These programmes will go through dictionary words and number sequences until the right one is found. It is therefore, very important to steer clear of standard words and numbers.

Best Practices For Passwords

Keep your password long. Make sure it's eight characters or longer.
Use UPPER CASE and lower case combinations
Add numbers to your letters
Misspell words
Substitute a letter for a number. ( Instead of using the letter "i" use the number "1" )
Create a password from an easy to remember phrase or combination of words.

Why not use words that describe you?. If you think your personality is " happy go lucky", then use that as a password but play with that phrase like so:

HaPPyG0LucKy

Here we've used UPPER CASE and lower case plus we used the number "0" instead of the letter "O".

Alternatively, you could use the password in this manner:

HaPPiG0LucK1

This uses UPPER CASE, lower case, numbers and misspelling.along with substitution of letters for numbers.

The best thing about this password is that the password is a phrase which is easy to remember.

Avoid Using The Same Password

As tempting as it may be, avoid using the same pasword for everything. Try to create a different password for different areas of your online activity.

Have a unique password for:

1. Your banking details
2. Your email accounts
3. Your online transactions such as when purchasing from Amazon.

How To Remember / Store Your Passwords

The problem with having many passwords is the fact that you can either forget your password or forget which password you've chosen for a particualr online activity. Many sites will provide a "forgotten your password?" option by which you add your email and your password ( or new one ) is sent to you. This is great but there are obvious concerns with this; not least the fact that someone might have access to your emails..

Unfortunately, there is no totally secure way of storing your passwords unless you can remember each one. Most of us feel we can remember them, but if that time comes when we can't, we could find ourselves locked out of some important information.

The "best" way is to write your passwords down in a small notepad which your keep somwhere safe ( this doesn't apply for work. If you are at work and have a company password, don't write it down and keep it stuck to your monitor or in your drawer !! ).
This might not sound secure but it's better than storing them on your computer because your computer can be hacked more easily than your house broken into and someone finding your password book.

There are programmes on the market with offer to store all your passwords within a secure "vault" on your computer. These programmes allow you to write down all your passwords and then store them within the programme which itself needs a password to allow access to that list........... and so it continues.


All in all, think about what you are doing and be vigilant. As long as you follow our suggestions above, you should seriously reduce the chances of anyone guessing your passwords.


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