Top tips for generating secure passwords

We use
passwords for everything. Our online accounts, social networks, web app logins,
computer logins, phones, cloud storage, banking, shopping and a whole lot more.
When the loss of a password can mean losing data, money, personal details or
worse, it makes sense to make that password a good one. As part of a data loss
prevention effort, Dave’s Computers is has some top tips for generating secure
passwords.

First, before
we begin generating secure passwords, a note about using them. Never repeat a
password for more than one login. It leaves two or more accounts wide open to
attack should one be compromised. If you have trouble creating or remembering
your passwords, use a password manager. They are free, easy to use and will
even generate secure passwords for you.

Generating secure
passwords

On its own,
there is no such thing as a completely secure password. All we can do is make
it as difficult as possible to break so nobody but the most determined hacker
will bother trying to crack it.

Hackers
tend to use two main attacks. First, dictionary attacks, which use a program
with a dictionary loaded into it to try all combinations of words. Second, phishing
or social engineering to try to trick you into giving up your password. Secure
passwords can help with that first attack but not the second so never give out
your password for any reason. Ever.

Here are
those tips for secure passwords:

1. Always
   use a different password for every login.
2. Use
   a password manager if you can.
3. Use
   a mixture of lower case, upper case, special characters and numbers.
4. Use
   a passphrase instead of a single word. The first line of a book, a line from a
   song, album title or random phrase. Just make sure you can remember it!
5. Use
   random words from different languages. Try Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew and other
   historical languages to create a phrase.
6. Use
   a color and object with a number or special character. Purp1eistheM0nkey! for
   example.
7. Always
   use a minimum of 10 characters for any single password. More is better as long
   as you can remember them.
8. It’s
   okay to write longer passwords down as long as you don’t lose the paper.
9. Use
   a password reminder sheet if you don’t want to write the password in plain
   text.
10. Never,
    ever give out your password if someone asks. Nobody should ever need them
    unless you know or trust them.

Passwords
have been around forever and show no signs of going anywhere soon. Generating
and managing them is hard work in the volume that we tend to need to create
them. However, there is no option but to keep them unique and make them hard to
guess!