- by Marianne Van der Wel
Passwords are crucial to protecting your computer data, your money and your identity. Trying to remember your passwords is also a challenge, particularly since rules for forming passwords differ depending on the site or application.
Creating secure passwords
In the case of banking, credit cards and cell phone accounts, you are generally allowed exactly four numbers. On the other hand, for computer applications and web site accounts the rules vary tremendously. Most online computer accounts such as insurance, email, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, blogs, meetup groups, news feeds, and sites to promote causes allow at least 6-8 character passwords. Some allow only letters of the alphabet and numbers, while others let you add some or all special characters. While nothing is 100% secure, here are some tips to help.
For computer applications, in addition to changing your password periodically and not using previous passwords, choose a password that is hard to guess. Using random characters is best since they are difficult to crack using computer software. Never write your passwords down or store them in easily recognizable files. Avoid birth dates, or family and pet names. Instead choose variations of a single password that is as random as possible and at least 6-8 characters long.
For example the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science suggests generating "reasonably secure" passwords by
- choosing two unrelated words such as
“unix fun”; “book goat” or “august brick”
- joining the words with a non-alphabetic character or two and then
- making at least one change, for example, uppercase a letter or add another character to one of the words, preferably not just at the very beginning or end of the password. Using this method, you could generate these passwords:
unix+fUn bo!ok29goat august,=bRICK
For an even more secure method, make up a phrase or sentence with punctuation that is easy to remember. Then choose the first letter of each word and the punctuation (if allowed) as your password. For example the sentence
Disturbing, confusing Life of it’s own!
would generate the password
D,cLoi!o!
For the four digit numeric passwords required for banking, credit and cell phones follow similar guidelines. One possibility is to choose a four letter word and use the numeric position of the letters in the alphabet as the password (e.g. “face” gives the password 6135, ”hide” gives 8945).
For more information on password security there are many more web sites such as:
Aids for remembering passwords
There are programs with specially encrypted databases that will help you keep track of passwords. For example Mozilla's web page describes the password manager which is available if you use Mozilla's browser, Firefox. This free, open source software is discussed in Saving Money With Open Source Software, from the Spring 2010 MURAnews.
Similar password managers are available in most browsers you might use.
Other open source and commercial password managers are also available. If choosing a free one, it’s often better to choose one that also provides a commercial upgrade to discourage viruses, etc.
If using a password manager is not for you and you need a record, create a computer file with a name that has nothing to do with protection (i.e. avoid words such as pass, password, protect, secure). Put the file on a memory stick and store the memory stick in a location that is not near your computer.
