Eight tips for making sure your passwords won’t be cracked

Making sure that your password is strong enough to withstand malicious users trying to access your various accounts is one of the most important things you can do when using a PC. Too many of us assume that if we never tell our password to anybody else then that will be enough to keep it secure, even if the password is our pet dog’s name whom we mention all the time on social networking sites.

Once hackers can figure out your password, they could gain free reign to your online identity –  and so emails, online bank accounts and instant messenger contacts would be easily accessible.  The best form of defence is to make sure that your password is as strong as possible, and here are some tips to make sure your password is unbreakable:

1.    Rate your password’s strength. First of all, check how strong your password is with the online password checker from Microsoft. This can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx 

Depending on how complicated or easy to guess your password is, you will be told if it is a Weak, Medium, Strong or Best password. If your password is rated as Weak, then you will need to change your password.

2.    Make sure your password does not include your name, dates or any words that are contained in a dictionary. Even words and names spelt backwards will be easily cracked (for example wehttam).

3.    Passwords should contain both upper and lower case letters, not just the first letter. The pattern of capital and non-capital letters should also be random.

4.    You should use a mixture of letters, numbers and punctuation marks in your password.

5.    Don’t use sequences of letters found together on a keyboard, for example QWERTY or ASDFGH.

6.    Your password should be long, preferably over 8 characters.

7.    Try not to spell out names or words using letter, numbers and punctuation, for example m@tth3w  - although it is less obvious, it will still be relatively easy to crack.

8.    Finally, for maximum security make sure you change your password regularly.

The stronger the password the more likely you’ll forget it, and if remembering a string of random letters and numbers isn’t hard enough, having a different password for every web site and changing those passwords regularly will make it nigh on impossible. Writing down your passwords on paper is extremely risky, and leaving them in a file on your computer that isn’t password protected is just as bad. Thankfully there are a number of programs that can help you store all your passwords securely, such as RoboForm (www.roboform.com). This will hold all of them in one password protected account, so you only have to remember one password.

Implement a strong password policy in Windows Vista.

If you want to make sure that all the users on your computer or home network use strong passwords for logging on to Windows Vista, you can implement a strong password policy, which makes sure they choose passwords that are secure.

To do this, open the Start menu and type in admin into Start Search. Select Administrative Tools then Local Security Policy > Account Policies > Password Policy.

From here you can make sure your users change their password after a certain amount of time in the Maximum password age section, that their password is a minimum length in Minimum password length, and you can set how many times a user can enter the same password. The Password must meet complexity requirements setting means that a user has to make sure their password follows the basic rules I mentioned at the beginning; using a mixture of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.

Although using strong passwords to log on to Windows Vista at home is less important than in a business environment, it is always a good idea to get into the habit of using the most secure passwords possible.