Is Your Online Password Secure?

PARSED ADSENSE CODE

When trying to keep personal and financial information away from dangerous computer hackers, a secure online password is often the first line of defense for everyone who uses the Internet. A good online password should be easy for users to remember, but difficult for anyone else to guess. In order to understand the importance of choosing a good password, we all must first understand the danger of choosing a bad one.
Two of the most common passwords used today are “123456” or “password.” These are the first two password entry attempts generally used by any intelligent hacker. So, what letter or number combination does an ideal password contain? Online passwords are made up of fairly random letter/number sequences. Generally speaking, a longer password containing a high number letters is considered to be secure. For active online users, however, this approach is not always the best, as longer passwords can be harder to remember.
One of the best techniques for seniors is to utilize is choosing a memorable phrase for their personal online password. This is done by choosing a phrase containing the same number of words that matches the password length in letters and use the first letter of each word to create an acronym. Normally, websites require passwords to be a minimum of eight characters. Using this formula, seniors can choose a memorable phrase with eight or more words, take the first letter from each word in the phrase and create a safe online password. For example, using the phrase “the dog stood on the wooden floor until he got too tired” could become the password “tDsotwFuHgtt,” which has high security strength. This phrase is a memorable one, even though the password itself is not. An additional idea is for seniors to capitalize every noun of the phrase, resulting in an unpredictable pattern within the password. When using this password development technique, seniors should remember:

• Never use a well-known phrase to create the password acronym.
• Always use a mix of capital and lower-case letters to increase security.
• Consider substituting one letter for a number if the website requires the use of numbers within each password.

Many websites will allow online users to test the security of passwords. Often the site users register with will offer opportunities to check the strength of a chosen password or make suggestions to increase the security of passwords. For example, The Password Meter allows users to test multiple passwords and conduct tests with improving strength by adding numbers or symbols. Gibson Research Corporation’s Password Haystacks is another website that allows its users to discover the strength of each chosen password. The additional use of Password Haystacks is that is shows how quickly a user’s password can be broken if vulnerable.
And remember, to be completely safe from having your valuable information stolen or attacked by hackers on the internet, make sure you have a great password for all of your accounts!