[GUIDE] Passwords

[Golfdriver97]

Cybersecurity has become one of the top fields in IT and possibly the world. Cyber crime is a cat and mouse game of keeping up with criminals who do whatever they can to access accounts. One easy way for them to do this is if passwords are reused across several websites.

But keeping 30, 50 or even 1,000 passwords can be a pain. Which is why I would highly suggest some kind of password manager, like Lastpass, bitWarden, RoboForm, etc. They can generate and save passwords that are complex, and nowhere possible to remember, and all you need is a Master password.

You can check the strength of your password by going here: https://www.security.org/how-secure-is-my-password/

I would highly suggest that you use a variant of your current password, just to check it's overall strength, i.e. same number and type of characters.

Master Password

It is commonly suggested to use a highly complex password using numbers, mix of upper and lower case, and a special character. But those are hard to remember. Something like this: 3N&e0sd808
It is strong, very secure, but 10 characters that are completely random has a very low chance of recollection. Using the password check site I got this:



5 years seems impressive...

I would honestly suggest a movie or song lyric quote. And here is why: complexity is part of making a hard password to crack. Once you add a strange character like a ~, the complexity can skyrocket. I can give an example.

We will take my username, Golfdriver97, with no changes to what I typed:

2,000 years isn't bad. But I'm sure we can do better....

This is adding a simple ! at the end of my name:

Much better, but I'm certain we can do better....

Now let's take a famous movie quote. A lot of people have seen Jaws (if you haven't it's a great movie). There is a line in there where one main character, Brody, says to Quint: You're gonna need a bigger boat

100 quadrillion is 10^15. And that is no spaces, no capitals, no special characters like the apostrophe in you're. Here is what it is with the capital, and the ':

Nonillion...that's 10^30. And that quote is short. Let's take something longer, but still easy to remember

Wizard of Oz: I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too (as typed here):



Quindecillion....10^48. Which is easier to remember? Random letters, and numbers, or You're gonna need a bigger boat?

 

[Golfdriver97]

With password managers, it also makes updating/changing passwords easy too. Many managers will update if you go through a website password change screen, and prompt for an update. You can always manually update passwords too through the portal of the manager itself. Most portals have extensions where you can easily get to them with the click of your mouse.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Other thoughts: When I stated that complexity makes a password hard to crack, length is can be more impactful than complexity. That was the overall point to my guide. A somewhat long movie quote like the one from the Wizard of Oz is easy to remember, and complex enough to make it very difficult to crack. Even comparing Jaws to the standard password suggestion shows the difference.

Even going as far as adding commas for your spaces (I advise against spaces: Managers probably accept them, but sites to set a password field may not), adds complexity.


As a word of caution...if someone really wants your password, they will get it. However, people as a whole take the path of least resistance, and if it presents too much of a hurdle to do something they will move on to easier targets.

 

[BerryBubbles]

Very informative & well written article! Thank You for taking the time to put this together.

 

[Golfdriver97]

Very informative & well written article! Thank You for taking the time to put this together.

You're welcome. The only downside is security can be a rabbit hole in and of itself. I feel as if I barely touched on everything that needs to be covered. But, most people can benefit from a password manager.

 

[B. Diddy]

Another effective way to create a password is to think of a phrase or sentence that means a lot to you, and take the first letter of each word (and maybe also sprinkle in symbols to replace certain letters, and capitalize certain letters). For example, "My grandfather's birthday is June 14, 1937" could become "mGFbij!4!937"