Save Your Stuff
Anyone who has a pulse and can fog a mirror knows that hacking and I.D. theft are rampant on the internet. You also know, if you know me or have read my book, “How To Be Your Own Bodyguard” that I’m a proponent of far more than just protecting your physical self. It’s no good being able to do so and then finding out you’ve been wiped out financially because of poor computer security. Self-defense is defending everything about yourself. This blog entry, therefore, is about password security.
Password Security Tip
Years ago I was at an email tracing seminar (when I was a Private Investigator) and the instructor gave us a list of the top 100 most common passwords. (He also then cracked almost everyone’s computer during lunch with a program on his computer.) That list was truly scary. The number 1 was actually the word “password.” Then there was truly stupid drivel like 123321 and the word password backward etc.
You don’t have to make it that easy for the bad guys. So how do we make a password that’s easy to remember and hard to crack? Something like this for example…BBBshyaWYSYs3B5FLI. I think we’d all agree that it’s harder to crack than password backward or 123abc. It also meets the parameters of more than 8 characters and contains at least one capital letter and a numeral. At first blush that looks like it would take a while to memorize right? If, however, you’re familiar with the nursery rhyme baa baa black sheep then you’ve nailed it.
Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool, yes sir, yes sir, 3 bags full. Take the first letter of each word and there’s your password. I added the “5” as an “S” on the end of “bags” to include more numbers. The “L” and the “I” on the end stand for Liberty Insurance which is how you make your password different for every account which is something else the pros recommend. You’ll also note that for extra security I made every group of 3 letters either capital or lower case for even more protection.
Like I said, hard to crack, easy to remember.
Fill yer boots.
