password safety: choose wisely, don’t repeat

In the 1995 movie Hackers with Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie, it is said that the four most commonly used passwords are: love, secret, sex, god. Fast forward 13 years later and many computer users are savvy to those common faux paus, but are not so savvy to the new most common mistake: repeating passwords for various accounts. The USA Today article here states that nearly half of Internet users in a recent survey say they use a universal password for all of their accounts, which can act as a skeleton key for all of your personal information. Stick to the tips below taken from Microsoft’s password security tips.

• make it long: The minimum password should be eight characters, but ideally 14 or more. A good tip is to go for a "pass phrase" since many systems support the space bar.
• vary the characters: Use letters, numbers, and even symbols or punctuation marks.
• personalize: Use words/phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess. NOTE: If you have trouble remembering, you can always jot down your password on paper and keep it in a safe place. Most likely, anyone who comes across it won’t know what the password’s for. Plus, a piece of paper is actually much harder to obtain nowadays than something saved on a password manager, server, site, drive, etc.
• check the safety rating: Click here for a handy Password Checker. Just type in your password to see how safe it rates!

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