Passwords passwords, once again, watch your choice

[TallTechie]

It was astonishing what came to light recently regarding password choice by the average user. In a large group of passwords revealed recently, 123456 was the most common, with _many_ users choosing it. I know everyone hates trying to remember good passwords, but mnemonics can help some. By that I mean, take say "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog." Now take the first letter of each word: Tqbfjotld. Then add a number and ideally a punctuation mark. Suddenly it becomes much easier to remember, even when you look at the password itself it looks like gibberish.

To some degree, also, it depends on the consequences of the account being compromised. For example, my MySpace account has a weaker password than my bank account. The less predictable the password, the longer it should take for a criminal to try to break it. The typical rules are to use both upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and punctuation, as well as to avoid names and words. So "Greetings" is not a good password, as many hackers use dictionary-based attacks that just cycle through all the words in English to try to find matches quicker. And, if you must, write them down, especially if it is at your home. A different password is recommended for each account, which minimizes damage when one account is compromised.

Of course, it is also important to keep up to date on having a good antivirus and scanning regularly. The best of the easy-to-use ones based on recent testing information was Norton Internet Security, which caught 95% of the nasties it was put up against.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Trudy in Illinois]

Thank you for your input on this. I am very aware of hackers learning passwords. Mine are complex enough I have to write them down and put them somewhere so I won't forget them. I don't bank by computer, nor do I do anything by computer which can put my credit rating in jeopardy.