Password Security

OK, so my Hotmail account has been hacked and used by spammers, my website has been hacked and redirected visitors to a porn site and my Twitter account was hacked and used by spammers … learn from me … don’t presume your password is secure enough.
Below are some suggestions on how to make your passwords secure and less likely to be cracked as well as some tips on what not to do and tips on how to remember your passwords.

UNDERSTANDING PASSWORDS
All you need to remember is that you want a strong password. A strong password is a password which is not found in a dictionary, it is not a name (human or pet), and it contains 3 of the following 4 characteristics:

• uppercase letters (A through Z)
• lowercase letters (a through z)
• numbers (0123456789)
• special characters (!@#$%^&*()_+{}|:”<>?[]\;’,./)

Truly strong passwords should be 12-14 characters, however many websites do not allow you that many characters. My experience has shown that 8 characters is the magic number for most every website.

CREATING PASSWORDS
First create 2 passwords and labels for your passwords:
My experience is that most all websites typically allow 8 characters in a password. Typically the more characters, the more secure the password. I label my passwords as follows: “Secure” and a “More Secure”. For example, my “More Secure” password might be 0ApR1fuL while my “More Secure” password would be 7o’c1dEC. I now only need to remember my two passwords, April Fools Day (0ApR1fuL) and 7 O’clock on December 1. These might look little confusing because they are foreign to you, but you can easily create a couple basic passwords which you use globally for all your sites.
An alternate way of creating passwords is to use common phrases and select characters from the phrase … such as “There’s a hole in the bucket” and the password might be T’saHiTb … this would be a strong password, but easy to remember.
When to use each password:
Whenever setting up a password, always use your “More Secure” password, particularly on a financial site. If it doesn’t work because of restrictions by the site, use your “Secure” password.

REMEMBERING/STORING PASSWORDS
We have a LOT of passwords to remember, I have more than 155 at home an additional 127 here at work. I find it easiest to maintain a spreadsheet where I store each site name, site address, the associated email address, username and password label; never enter your password with your username, use the label instead.

HERE'S WHAT NOT TO DO

• Don’t use anyone’s name or nickname.
• Don’t use your pets name
• Don’t use your car’s make, model, etc.
• Don’t use words found in the dictionary
• Don’t spell common words backwards
• Don’t end your passwords with numbers (some sites won’t even allow it)
• Don’t use the names of sport figures or teams
• Don’t use default passwords
• Don’t use your license plate number
• Don’t simply replace L’s with 1’s and O’s with 0’s, etc.
• Don’t use common sequences such as qwerty or 12345
• Don’t use your phone number, or any sequence of numbers alone
• Don’t use your Social Security Number
• Don’t use any part of your real name or user name in the password
• Don’t use your birthday, anniversary, etc.
• Don’t presume your password is secure