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| Password Guidelines |
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We recommend you don't use the following:
• Your partner, child or pet's name or followed by a 0 (zero)
(because they always make you use a number, don't they?!)
• The last 4 digits of your social security number.
• 123 or 1234 or 123456.
• Your city, college or football team name.
• Date of birth - your own, your partner's or your child's.
• "password"
• "god"
• "letmein"
• "money"
• "love"
The latter few are far too obvious, even for a novice fraudster.
Here are some useful password tips:
Randomly substitute numbers for letters that look similar. The letter 'o' becomes the number '0', or even better an '@' or '*'. i.e. - m0d3ltf0rd… like modelTford)
Randomly throw in capital letters (i.e. - Mod3lTF0rd)
Think of something you were attached to when you were younger, but DON'T CHOOSE A PERSON'S NAME! Every name plus every word in the dictionary will fail under a simple brute force attack.
Maybe a place you loved, or a specific car, an attraction from a holiday or a favourite restaurant?
You really need to have different username and password combinations for everything. Remember, the technique is to break into anything you access just to figure out your standard password, then compromise everything else. This doesn't work if you don't use the same password everywhere.
Since it can be very difficult to remember so many passwords, we recommend using Roboform. It will store all of your passwords in an encrypted format and allow you to use just one master password to access all of them. It will also automatically fill in forms on Web pages and you can even get versions that allow you to take your password list with you on your PDA, phone or a USB key.
Once you've thought of a password, try the link below to Microsoft's password strength tester to find out how secure it is.
Microsoft password strength checker |
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