Password Best Practices

Coming up with a secure password can be tough. Coming up with a secure password every 90 days that can't be the same as last year's password can be downright torturous for some. So to help you with your password woes, here are a couple of tips that you can use to help come up with fresh, secure passwords.

Build a Rotation

Try to find something that you can link your passwords to that rotates on a schedule such as seasons. Using passwords like "Summer2013" and "Winter2011" meet the criteria of Capital, Lowercase, and numbers of symbols and can be easily modified to add additional security. For example instead of "Winter2013", you could set your password as "Winter@2013!" Pick symbols and their location and then just change the seasons and years, or you can use months; "October@2013!". Linking your password to seasons or months help you remember your password, and adding your own special touches like symbols and capital letters will help ensure it is secure.

Complexity

Along with password complexity, password length is very important. For example, a 5 character password using only lowercase letters, has 12.3 million different possibilities. Add 1 more character to that password and your number of possibilities jumps to 321 million. At 8 characters, the number of possibilities soars to 217 billion. That may seem like a lot, however a single computer today can crack that password in a mere 2 seconds. This is why we add numbers, symbols, and capital letters. Using the same length of 8 characters, but using capital, lowercase, numbers and symbols, we've now expanded the pool of possibilities to 6.7 quadrillion possibilities. That would take a computer more than 18.6 hours to crack.

Use leetspeak

Leetspeak is a form of writing whereby some letters in a word are replaced by a numerical likeness or other letters that create an identical or similar sound. While there are various degrees of leetspeak, if you get into the habit of replacing the letter i with the number 1, the letter A with the @ sign, and using the number 3 in place of an E, you can make your passwords much stronger.

Don't Write it Down

I can't stress this one enough. Your password is only as strong and effective as the method you use to remember it. Don't share your password with anyone, and don't write down your password on a post-it note under your keyboard. Finding a password rotaion that is easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess is your best bet.