How to choose a strong password - simple tips for better security

Sophos's Graham Cluley explains a simple way of creating a complex hard-to-guess password - and how you should never use the same password on different sensitive websites.

Learn at http://www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/03/10/password-website/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Sophos
• SophosLabs
• password
• security
• Graham Cluley

[SkinnyDre]

Forget the password managers. Simply add the first letter of the website (the website you're entering) to your well chosen password (as indicated in the first part of this video) and voila!

Doing so will allow you to use a different password on every site you are logging on, while preventing you remembering 20 different passwords.

One same password, only one characters changes depending of the website you are logging on.

[SophosLabs]

@SkinnyDre Unfortunately if someone unlocks the "formula" that you are using for your password they can now get into *any* website where you have an account.

[1oxo1]

Good video, but then again keyloggers defeat no matter how strong your password is.

[uzuragakure]

pwgen -sy 4096

[hazielprot]

@bristlekrs

and so what? can't draw a ampersand... doesnt invalidate nothing that he said... it's time to people use stronger passwords... and use "clever" mnemonics to remember them

[veromoh]

@1oxo1 Yup, they do. But this is just a countermeasure of cracking/guessing passwords, About keyloggers, there are countermeasures too, and for securing you should have to think about all the aspects.

[LokiV]

i use Keepass without its file name and icon and i use a masterpassword + keyfile none of which are on my pc.

passwordcard is useful too and free

[infopareja]

Realmente interesante

[hotelmason241]

It would take a desktop PC

About 2 thousand years

to hack your password

[Sh012222]

IF THE GERMAN ENIGMA MACHINE CODES WERE BROKEN THEN THESE PASSWORDS CAN BE CRACKED TOO.

[bristlekrs]

Difficult to trust someone who can't draw an ampersand.

[thomasrdean]

This is not a particularly good password selection alogorithm. The problem is that there are not a lot of easy to remember sentences. In practice what happens is the sentence that is chosen is the first line or chorus of the current pop song, or some well known literary phrase such as "all the worlds a stage and the men and women merely actors". A good cracker can build a dictionary of standard phrases and the standard substitutions and end up in your account faster.

[rswarbrick]

@SophosLabs Yees, but what if you use several computers to log into different accounts? Password management software doesn't work so well then. Of course, if the website has correctly stored your password as a hash, an attacker probably only has a (different) preimage and won't be able to reverse engineer your naming scheme. Obviously this isn't as good as a completely different password, but better than repeating one.