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 Creating And Maintaining Strong Passwords
by Dancho Danchev
Frame4 Security Systems.
Passwords are essential for the security of your computer, private data, and everything else that you define as a sensitive information that needs to be protected against those who are not authorized to view and modify it. The purpose of this article is to briefly explore various strategies, as well as provide you with recommendations in a process of creating and maintaining strong passwords.
- Your password must be at least 6 characters long, possesing a
combination of small, capital letters, numbers and characters like
(!@#$%^&*(), which will result in one pretty strong and hard to crack
password.
- Do not use dictionary words, or an obvious sequence of keyboard
characters as aaa123bbb, 12345678 etc
- Changing your password as often as possible on a monthly basis would be
great.
- Do not share your password and ID with anyone, pretending to be a
Customer Support staff members etc. Don't get fooled and remember that
no one can force you into telling your ID and password.
- Do not use the same password on the other computer, service etc as once
revealed it would definitely compromise the Security of all other
systems and services.
- Do not write your passwords on any papers, notes etc do your best and
memorize them, no matter how secret the place you've hidden the note
is, this is highly insecure way of storing accounting data.
- Before entering your ID and password make sure nobody is watching you.
- Instead of using the feature "Save password" within any service or
program, consider writing it each time, as you're significally reducing
the risk of someone stealing your passwords from the computer's cache
memory.
- Before entering your ID and password, make sure the computer is well
secured: perform trojans- and keyloggers-clean using popular software programs.
- When leaving the computer, or the service you're using, make sure you
Logout, thus protecting the sensitive data from malicious user, snooping
around.
Remember that passwords are the first line of Security within any
system. Make sure they're strong created,and secure maintained.
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