Since our lives are “online”, we inadvertently expose a lot of our information within email, social web sites and our financial accounts. Arguably, the most important protection against others accessing this information is how secure our computers and password design. This does not need to be a difficult challenge. Denying the time to update your passwords is like leaving your personal safe open and unlocked.
It is impossible to stop information from spreading once it is out in the public. There are people who spend their entire lives trying to steal your personal information and identity. (They write and use programs designed to capture files that contain your password and identity. They intend on stealing your information while you are surfing the Internet. They attach to your computer, grab a copy of the file that contains your password and then guess your passwords through Brute Force attacks. This simply means trying to use passwords over and over until they have guessed correctly. To help them, they use freely distributed CD’s and DVD’s that contain millions of dictionary words, character names from novels and popular phrases. Once they unlock your account, they do not take control of your account, but ride on your coat tails to hide behind your identity or gain as much information as possible about you.
To prevent this, designing complex passwords is essential to everyone’s online life. Menlo Technologies suggests designing three passwords:
1) personal email account,
2) business email account,
3) registrations on all sites which want your information
This way, if someone gets your email address, from within a company you registered online – like an employee of “Teddy Bears R Us”, they cannot use that password for your email access.
A complex password, that is mixed upper and lower letter case, with a number you are familiar – a seven digit phone number, the street address of your childhood home – could be the difference between giving up your identity and keeping it safe. Make sure your numbers are not consecutive and your letters do NOT repeat.
This is wrong: bbb4567
This is correct: MydogsName_68239
These passwords are considered complex and not considered dictionary words or character names. Words that change monthly like January or names of proper names like Boxer or Stanley are all too easily recognized.
If you feel like you need to use more than three passwords, you can use a software program called a password safe. There are free versions and versions that you can buy with more features.
For an Apple, you can use:
For a Windows system like Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7:
An excellent list of real password safe software can be found here.
UPDATE: (March 2011):
We are still promoting the same ideas and considerations for password protection, but have added two additional vendors that are considered excellent depending on what computers are used within your corporation.
For an Apple, you can use:
1Password , Strip, KeePass , Lastpass
For a Windows system like Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7:
PasswordSafe , KeePass , Lastpass
