|
by Cecilia Pang
IF YOU are one of those who dread that dialogue box popping up on your computer to remind you that it is time to change your password, you are not alone.
Yes, it is a pain to have to dream up yet another alpha-numeric password that is eight to 15 characters long. However, if the password has to be that obscure, what are the chances that you can remember them?
To help with recall, people often use obvious information such as birthdays, addresses, anniversary dates, names of pet or children as passwords.
These, as well as ordinary words in the English language, are all considered bad choices as hackers can easily use a simple software to generate a list of passwords of this nature.
Here are suggestions to help you come up with strong passwords that you can remember as well.
You could combine important information, such as working in your pet's initials with the date you bought it. However, avoid something obvious like using your child's name followed by the birth date.
Better yet, create a passphrase rather than a password. For instance, if you like Nike's Just Do It motto, you could string it as a phrase like so: JusdoIT or &IJusdoIT2.
You can also generate a random password by using the initials of words in a sentence that means something to you.
For example, the sentence could be: 'I sued my husband for $2m in our divorce'.
The password generated: 'Ismhf2miod'.
Also, change passwords regularly as a way to provide another level of safety. Sometimes, a password has to be given out to the site administrator to fix a problem.
In that situation, you must change your password immediately. The recommended schedule is to change your password every six weeks or so.
For my non-transactional services or sites, I change my passwords once a quarter, or every six months if I feel it is a strong password.
Although this sounds obvious, never leave your passwords written on a scrap of paper and leave that lying around next to your computer or in your wallet next to your ATM card.
Also, do not create a 'password' file in your PC either. You will be surprised - but people do that.
If you must write down the password, think of a cryptic way to do it and leave it in a safe place, away from your credit cards and your computer.
|
Using different locks and keys
Q: Do you really need to have a different password for every site or every new service you use?
A: This is like asking a dentist if you really need to floss your teeth. The answer is that you are strongly advised to do so.
You can certainly get away with one ultra-strong password. However, once the combination has been cracked - like when a tooth starts to decay - you would wish you had not been so laissez faire about creating multiple passwords.
If a hacker manages to hack into a site and get your first password, you would have severely compromised all your records.
At the very least, you should use different passwords for financial transactions and simple access to websites.
For example, your ATM card password should be different from that of your Facebook account.
You would not use the same key for the safe to open your front gate, would you?
The same principle holds for passwords.
________________________
Ask
E-mail your questions to stdled@sph.com.sg with ESC as your subject header. Give your full name and phone number.
esc key in Digital Life is a fortnightly lowdown on everything you wanted to know about the tech world but were afraid to ask.
|
This article was first published in The Straits Times, Digital Life.
For more The Straits Times stories, click here.
| 
