Posted on 02/02/2005 10:31:23 AM PST by srm913
Deciding what the password is Kristi L. Gustafson Albany Times Union Published February 2, 2005
Love. Sex. Money. ... Password. There's a good chance you've typed one, or all, of these terms recently (and not necessarily because you were doing something you shouldn't). You may just have been accessing your e-mail, doing some online banking, shopping or looking in on your 401(k).
These four words are the ones people choose most often as passwords, according to Chris Faulkner, CEO of the Dallas-based CI Host, a Web hosting and data center with 215,000 customers worldwide. Those obvious choices put you at risk.
"Our memory bank is so overloaded with passwords," said Faulkner.
Password proliferation really took over in the early 1990s with the Internet boom. "We naturally pick things that are easy to remember."
We shouldn't.
Hackers have software that can run through 200,000 to 4 million potential passwords per second. If you have a four-character, letter-only password, it can take a hacker four seconds to break into your account.
But an eight-character password with at least one number would take seven years to crack, according to Faulkner.
So protect yourself. Use different passwords, alpha-numeric combinations and never, ever share your password or write it on a note stuck to your computer monitor or tucked under your keyboard.
"Using only one password puts your credit rating and identity at risk if your password is compromised anywhere, on any Web site," said Randall Palm, chief technology and information security officer for CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association. "Easy passwords should never be used for online transactions or personal information."
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I use 14 passwords. If I forget one, it's going to be one of the 14.
The ones we use for work are works of art.
But you could make your password 'pas$wo4d' and it would be safe enough.
Whenever possible, I just use a bunch of asterisks.
Hey srm, did you know I can edit your profile now?
Owl_Eagle
”Unleash the Hogs of Peace.”
P.J. O'Rourke Parliament of Whores
But an eight-character password with at least one number would take seven years to crack, according to Faulkner.
Throw in a special character and an upper-case letter also and think what happens to that 7 years.
Good luck to anyone trying to use my passwords for their financial advantage. I'd like to see who gives them financing of any kind(thanks to a bad divorce, mine is in the toilet).
"But you could make your password 'pas$wo4d' and it would be safe enough."
Oh GREAT!
Now I have to change MINE!!!
Love4Sex
BTTT
I always use "Lazamataz" as a password, no one would ever think of that.
The password thing can get out of hand. At work they REQUIRE us to use numbers AND special characters in our password, and our password can't duplicate any of our previous five passwords. You know what that means; everyone writes down their passwords. And, everyone calls Information Systems to change their passwords every few months - with a minimum of 4 seperate systems, they get out of sync.
IMHO, force everyone to include either a number OR a special character, and your password should not be a word that appears in a dictionary. Follow these and you're good.
Try BTT1T...
It will be more secure.
:]
noB0DY w1lL 3Ver 9UE$5 My P4$5w0Rd. nO80Dy! 3V3r!
Type the name or the chorus of your favorite song, separated by some form of punctuation: i.e. "pull;me;under", or "back%in%black" This makes remembering the phrase pretty easy, and it's very secure when you get beyond one or two words.
Too late. I changed it pronto after reading this article!
LOL!
That’s why most businesses won’t allow such things. Ours required a minimum of 6 letters and 6 numbers or non-letter characters. THEN you get to enter the 6 digit SecurID number on the little number-generator you carry.
It’s something of a pain in the ass, but works pretty well from a security standpoint.
First, *nobody* can get on without the SecurID, no matter what. Just ask anyone that misplaced it or had the battery die. Then, if somebody quits or is fired or loses it, IS/IT can cut it off so it no longer works and it'll be essentially useless to whoever has it.
The big drawback though, of course, is if you lose the darn thing you’re royally screwed.
I have to change my password every 6 months. I use a variation of the original password that appears random, but is clear to me.
I always use "catdog" for my password.
(this is a joke, ok?)
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