Creating Powerful Passwords

By Russell Martin on Jan 21, 2010 in Productivity

PC World just posted a great article on how to, or not to create your passwords. The full article “Hacking Passwords” by David Coursey is definately worth reading. I wanted to share with you just a small section of their tips.

Imperva provides a list of password best practices, created by NASA to help its users protect their rocket science, they include:

It should contain at least eight characters
It should contain a mix of four different types of characters – upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters such as !@#$%^&*,;” If there is only one letter or special character, it should not be either the first or last character in the password.
It should not be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should not include any part of your name or your e-mail address.

Following that advice, of course, means you’ll create a password that will be impossible, unless you try a trick credited to security guru Bruce Schneir: Turn a sentence into a password.

For example, “Now I lay me down to sleep” might become nilmDOWN2s, a 10-character password that won’t be found in any dictionary

Oh and one more tip.. writing down your passwords and taping them to your computer screen… not the best idea…

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About the Author

Russell is worship leader and communications director at Williams Memorial United Methodist Church. He is married to his wonderful wife and has 4. He writes about music, worship, and communication on his blog, fork in the road music. He and his wife also blog about their adoption process, to family and friends informed, and to encourage others in their own adoption journey.