Small Business Tech Tips

Many of us are of an age that we can remember not having to have an internet password for ANYTHING, because there WAS NO INTERNET!  I can’t even remember this time, but at the risk of dating myself, I do recall learning to type on a TYPEWRITER!

However, in this day and age, not only do we have to remember passwords, but we have to change them every 72 days sometimes, and they have to contain an uppercase letter, lowercase letter, symbol, and number!  And even so, you’re STILL NOT FULLY PROTECTED.

So, it’s important to have a good knowledge of best practices for creating strong passwords that you can remember, or keep stored in a tool like 1Password or Roboforms, and protect your self from predators.

1)  Multiple Passwords – you should have at least two passwords that you should use for different sites.  This prevents hackers from stealing one and being able to use for multiple sites your in history.  For example, use a non-secure password for sites like Facebook etc…and then a much more secure and more difficult to hack password for banking, purchasing sites etc…

2)  Criteria for Bad Passwords:

• Do not use obvious words. There was a time when “password” was one of the most common passwords on the internet (along with “root” and “12345”).
• Do not use words from the dictionary as passwords.
• Do not depend on a dictionary word with simple substitutions.  That’s because later password crackers would run not only the dictionary, but also a dictionary with a few substitutions, such as “0”s for “o”s and “1”s for “l”s.
• Do not use obvious names of people or places you know. Your girlfriend’s name, your street address, and your favorite pet’s name are all straight out. A password cracker may be able to guess these.
• Do not write down your password.  Paper is easy to steal
• Do not keep the same password forever.  This is one of those situations where redundancy is NOT your friend.

How to Pick a Strong Password:

1. Pick a short phrase or obscure word, and shorten it:  ambrosias = ambrsis)
2. Convert a letter to a number:  ambrs1s
3. Then add on a something you will remember, like your pet’s name:  ambrs1sgus
4. Then capitalize two letters in the middle:  amBrs1sGus
5. Then convert one letter to a symbol:  amBrs1sGu$
6. You will now have a minimum 81% strong password on the password meter.

3rd Party Password Generators:

- Applications like 1Password and Roboform are capable of not only storing passwords for easy to use insertion with one master password for your computer, but they can also generate strong passwords for you that they then remember.  I personally like 1Password, but they are both great products, so you should check them out and read about them.

 Here’s some additional articles on password storage and best practices:

• What’s In A Password- Part 1
• What’s In A Password- Part 2
• Software Review- 1Password

Good luck!!

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Read more by: Danny Sears

Tags: Apple, forgot password, iPad, iPhone, Mac, management, password, security, windows

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Small Business Computer Tips, Small Business Mobile Technology Tips, Small Business Security Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.