Creating a Strong Password

It’s not enough to just use any old password. You can improve the security of any operating system and, hence, of your entire network—by making each password robust enough that it is impossible to guess and is impervious to software programs designed to try different password combinations. Such a password is called a strong password. Ideally, you want to build a password that provides maximum protection while still being easy to remember.


You really need to know only three things to create strong-like-bull passwords:

• Use passwords that are at least 8 characters long—Shorter passwords are susceptible to programs that just try every letter combination. You can combine the 26 letters of the alphabet into about 12 million 5-letter word combinations, which is no big deal for a fast program. If you bump things up to 8-letter passwords, however, the total number of combinations rises to 200 billion, which would take even the fastest computer quite a while. If you use 12-letter passwords, as many experts recommend, the number of combinations goes beyond mind-boggling: 90 quadrillion, or 90,000 trillion!
  
  
  
  
• Mix up your character types—The secret to a strong password is to include characters from the following categories: lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. If you include at least one character from three (or, even better, all four) of these categories, you’re well on your way to a strong password.
  
  
  
  
• Don’t be too obvious—Because forgetting a password is inconvenient, many people use meaningful words or numbers so that their password will be easier to remember. Unfortunately, this means that they often use extremely obvious things such as their name, the name of a family member or colleague, their birth date, their social security number, or even their system username. Being this obvious is just asking for trouble.