Creating+Strong+Passwords

=Creating Strong Passwords= Why do we need passwords to access sites? What do we mean by a strong password? The __information__ below will tell you why.

Passwords. The definition of a password is: " A secret word or phrase that must be used to gain admission to something." Every account you make online will require you to create a password for proof of identity. This is so **__only you__** can access your account information. You probably have a password to log in to your computers at school, so __**only you**__ can access your files and documents. You may even have a password to log on to your computer at home, if it's used by multiple people, so __**only you**__ can access your history and what you've saved and installed.

When it comes to creating a password, most websites will have rules such as "6 characters or more" or "Must contain at least 4 characters and at least 2 numbers". This is so it is harder for anyone to try and guess your password and gain access to your account and information. On some websites, such as MSN, passwords can be categorized as weak, moderate or strong. This simply means how "complicated" your password is, which also takes into account the length and unpredictability. For example: a password containing both upper-case letters and lower-case letters as well as numbers, will be a much **stronger** password than one with purely lower-case letters.

The best way to protect your accounts is by simply not telling **anyone** your passwords!

- Kyla

Did you know that surveys are ran each year to determine the most weak passwords that people are using around the world. Unfortunately I find it hard to add on to this page after Kyla’s excellent post. But I can certainly reiterate the points she has raised. Strong password stem from some key ingredients, you can use a combination of different creation techniques to create, great, strong passwords that look after and protect your online services and computers.

First of all using a different password for the things you use is a great way to prevent any of your computers or online services from being compromised or hacked into. Make a password for one site, alter it again and use it for another site, and so on. This protects your accounts from all being hacked into or compromised at once. One hacked account is definitely better than 4 or 10 hacked services.

If you use a Google account, I suggest you use their two step verification method, when logging in. First of all you must setup two step verification; you can find this option in your Google account options page. After setting it up login works in the following way; first create a normal Google account password and sign into your account using a web browser at the Google website; now you will be asked for a code, which is your two step verification. This code can be obtained in several ways; you can get Google to text you a new code when you sign in; you can use an Android or IOS app to generate a code; or use the backup codes given to you during setup, use this method if you do not have your mobile phone. That’s it, now you are logged in to Google. By the way, you also can create application specific passwords to use in email apps, or on your phone, these special passwords replace the Google account password and the two step verification code, these passwords are long and complex and most likely will only be entered once and never cracked. Creating a strong password stems from different creation techniques. The best password includes the follow elements and are is hardly every hacked or broken.


 * 1) 1. Use lowercase and UPPERCASE characters.
 * 2) 2. Use $ymbols!
 * 3) 3. Use s p a c e s.
 * 4) 4. Use num8ers.
 * 5) 5. Make your password very very very long!

Studies show people don’t care about their passwords and then get really annoyed when their accounts are hacked and data is stolen. Here is a list of 2011's most week passwords.

As you can see, its seems finally people are getting the message about making nice strong passwords || That’s all I’ve got, I hope I have tried to be different from what Kyla talked about.
 * 1) 123456
 * 2) 12345
 * 3) 123456789
 * 4) Password
 * 5) iloveyou
 * 6) princess
 * 7) rockyou
 * 8) 1234567
 * 9) 12345678
 * 10) abc123
 * 11) Nicole
 * 12) Daniel
 * 13) babygirl
 * 14) monkey
 * 15) Jessica
 * 16) Lovely
 * 17) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39434d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">michael
 * 18) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39434d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ashley
 * 19) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39434d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">654321
 * 20) <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #39434d; font-family: inherit; font-size: 14px; vertical-align: baseline;">Qwerty
 * > They are pretty stupid aren’t they? There was also a study ran that showed how long people where making their passwords. Again, this worries me, they don’t want to get hacked into, yet they make their password so really short! OMG! Here are the results: [[image:cert2socialmedia/top20_worst_passwords_length_distro.jpg width="302" height="285"]]

Troy Stanway

“Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don’t let anybody else use it, and get a new one every 6 months”-Clifford Stoll

When creating a password a lot of people often have the dilemma of deciding whether you should use a simple password that you can easily remember, or a complex one that will be harder for you to remember but also harder for other people to find out. The trick generally is to find a password that you can remember and that will be hard for someone to work out or hack.

Firstly your password should be as long as you can make it. The longer the password the harder it will be for other people to find it out by hacking or other means. Secondly try using uppercase and lowercase letters in your password. As well as symbols and numbers. Using these methods, a simple password such as just plain ‘password’ can become p@55Word576. Paraphrasing is a good way of making up passwords. For example if you have two dogs called oscar and snoopy, and your birthday is (25-4-93) you could make your password o&s25493.

While its advisable that you have a different password for everything, sometimes having all those passwords can be quite difficult. So ideally you should have a password for forum sites, email etc. and different passwords for bank, itunes, steam or any other place where your credit card details could be found.

Other good idea is to use a password manager of some kind. Password dragon is a free password manager that is reasonably decent.

Anyway hope ive given some info that’s different to the post above. I guess in the end the best idea is not to tell anyone else your password -Sam Harding

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #3b3b3c; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">Use Different Passwords Everywhere <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #3b3b3c; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">Why would you do this when it's so easy to just type "fido" at every password prompt? Here's why: If "fido" gets cracked once, it means the person with that info now has access to all of your online accounts. A <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #007ba1; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">study by BitDefender

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #3b3b3c; display: block; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; text-align: left;">showed that 75 percent of people use their e-mail password for Facebook, as well. If that's also your Amazon or PayPal password and it's discovered, say good-bye to some funds, if not friends.

Having a strong password is beneficial to everyone on the online world, without a strong password it makes it very easy for everyone to access all kinds of information you don't want anyone seeing! Here are five steps to help you create a strong password and avoid people accessing your information. > > > > > > > [] > . - Mark Bondarenko
 * 1) Do not use personal information. You should never use personal information as a part of your password. It is very easy for someone to guess things like your last name, pet's name, child's birth date and other similar details.
 * 1) Do not use real words. There are tools available to help attackers guess your password. With today's computing power, it doesn't take long to try every word in the dictionary and find your password, so it is best if you do not use real words for your password.
 * 1) Mix different character types. You can make a password much more secure by mixing different types of characters. Use some uppercase letters along with lowercase letters, numbers and even special characters such as '&' or '%'.
 * 1)  Use a pass phrase . Rather than trying to remember a password created using various character types which is also not a word from the dictionary, you can use a passphrase. Think up a sentence or a line from a song or poem that you like and create a password using the first letter from each word.
 * 1) For example, rather than just having a password like 'yr$1Hes', you could take a sentence such as "I like to read the About.com Internet / Network Security web site" and convert it to a password like 'il2rtA!nsws". By substituting the number '2' for the word 'to' and using an exclamation point in place of the 'i' for 'Internet', you can use a variety of character types and create a secure password that is hard to crack, but much easier for you to remember.
 * 1) Use a password management tool. Another way to store and remember passwords securely is to use some sort of password management tool. These tools maintain a list of usernames and passwords in encrypted form. Some will even automatically fill in the username and password information on sites and applications