Importance of using secure passwords
Feb 13, 2009
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You have probably heard before, "choose a good password, something random and not too simple to figure out". Well, I am here to re-iterate this to you. Not only should you choose a password that is complex and random, you should choose one that is impersonal to you. For example, do not use your kids names, your dog's name, your birthdate, your favorite football team, etc.
It is also important to create passwords that have a variety of letters, numbers and symbols. Such as the password "taYpa13!0F".
You may be wondering to yourself, "how in the world can I remember a different password for all the different services I use?". In these times, where there are great services that are provided for free ( gmail,yahoo mail, twitter, facebook, myspace ) and also services that you use to make your life simpler ( online banking, managing loans online, purchasing online ). If you were to use the same password for your myspace account as your online banking login, this could come back to bite you later if your myspace passwords get comrpomised and now the person is able to login to your bank.
In order to both provide security with your passwords and sanity for you ( not having to remember a million passwords ), I have a tip that will help. Choose 5 different passwords, ranging from least secure to most secure ( for least secure you could use something like "junGle3" and your most secure password could be something like "taYpa13!0F" ). Then when you sign up for a service requiring you to choose a password for it's login, assess what password security level the service would require. Perhaps for myspace and yahoo mail, you dont mind using your least secure and easiest to type password, but for online banking you will want to use your most secure password.
I know that this goes against what you hear, that it is ideal to keep different passwords that are secure for every service you use. In reality this isn't really practical, so remember my suggestions if you choose to re-use one password in multiple places.
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