Yahoo! News has a useful article on the security of your computer and online passwords.
Nobody wants to get hacked. But when it comes to choosing a password, there are key steps you can take to reduce your risk of data intrusions from unwanted virtual visitors. This week's edition of Upgrade Your Life will teach you how to make a strong, safe password that's easy to remember — and how to reduce your odds of being an easy target for hackers.
There's more at the link. Very useful for those who haven't had formal training in data security.
The article also links to Gibson Research Corp.'s 'Password Search Space Calculator'. This very useful utility calculates the strength of your password, and gives estimates of how long it will take to 'crack' it using various techniques. I found that just a couple of simple changes to my passwords greatly increased their security against 'cracking'. Highly recommended.
Peter
4 comments:
thisisapassword is much easier to remember than 1$#@56gf2 - and the former is actually more secure.
Us geeks have been trying to tell people that...
This says it all,
http://xkcd.com/936/
It's not just the time it takes to hack a password that is an issue here. When the misplaced security policy *requires* one of those difficult to remember passwords, a user is likely to commit a more egregious security violation by doing something like writing it down on a piece of tape and sticking it to the inside of the desk drawer.
Jon, beat me to the xkcd link. :D
"Through 20 years of effort, we've successfully trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but easy for computers to guess."
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