Need A Good Password, Use a Sentence [Sherman's Security Blog]
If you're a user concerned about password security on web sites that require login credentials, Sherman has posted a suggestion that will make your passwords less vulnerable to hackers. Many users choose their password from words that appear in the dictionary. The problem with dictionary-based passwords is that using a "brute-force" attack - simply attempting to guess a password with multiple attempts - hackers can use a database of dictionary words to crack a password.
So, what's an easy way to make an easy to remember password that doesn't use dictionary words? Think of a relatively long sentence, then use the first letters of each word in that sentence to create a password. For example, if your sentence is, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," then your password would be "Tqbfjotld." Sherman suggests adding numeric characters to add to the complexity of the password. Just think of a sentence that contains a number or numbers.




This trick works, sometimes. Unfortunately, there are different policies for each website:
- special characters
- must have a capital letters
- > or < a certain number of characters
- time interval between password updates
If it wasn't for Password Corral, I wouldn't be able to safely access any website twice!
Posted by: TomR | Monday, February 08, 2010 at 03:31 PM