Do you have trouble coming up with passwords? Are you unsure if yours is “strong enough”? Invariably, if you use any computer or mobile device on a regular basis, eventually you will have to create a password. It could be for an email account you signed up for, your bank’s online services, and so on. If you’re like many of us, you might have several passwords for many different services. Alternatively, you could have one password that you use for everything. Regardless of what you do, you should at the very least make sure your password is a difficult one to crack. Now, this doesn’t mean that it has to be difficult to remember, but here are some guidelines to choosing a strong password:
- Have both UPPER and lower case letters.
- Have digits and/or punctuation marks.
- AT LEAST eight characters long.
- Can be typed quickly so that someone can’t sneak a peek.
Now we could wax mathematical about the strength of the password versus how easy it is to crack, but, suffice it to say that it means the difference between it being cracked in 30 seconds to 300 Million Years. Check out these links and to see how your password stacks up:
Another Password Strength Analyser
The Diceware Passphrase (Probably the best way to create a password I’ve ever seen!)
