Strong Passwords

In honor of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, here are some tips regarding Passwords. Please continue to follow our blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts, as we discuss security issues such as malware, phishing and other scams.

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One of the most painful things we do on the computer, many times each day, is try to remember and enter complex passwords. Without them, we leave ourselves unsecured, and with them we experience an absurd level of frustration.

Best practices dictate that we use strong passwords and change them often, but in reality it is far too easy to use one password for all of your logins, even writing it down on a Post-it note and sticking it below your screen, or under your keyboard.

One of the best ways to create and remember a strong password is make up a phrase that has meaning to you, but will difficult for anyone else to guess. Using the first letters, capital letters, numbers and symbols will create a strong password. For example, “JitsITg1k” can be remembered as, “Jim is the smartest IT guy I know” or “TLwiai09” for “The Lakers won it all in 09”.

For more examples, check out this Microsoft article titled Strong passwords: How to create and use them , and to test your own password’s strength, go here: Password checker. Here is another recent posting with some additional good advice: http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/choosing-smart-password.html

Remember, security is only as strong as its weakest link. Please make sure you and your staff are using strong passwords, not just on your internal systems, but also the websites you visit, and home computers as well.

If you have any questions about passwords, or security in general, give us a call: (562) 472-0876

- Ken Cowan, Director, Business Development