Quick and Easy Guide to Better Passwords by Francesca Geens of Digital Dragonfly
With so much of our business and personal information being stored and processed electronically now, it is more important than ever to use secure passwords. If, like many of us, you find yourself with a mental block when it comes to selecting a password which is not easy for others to guess, this guide from Francesca Geens will be very useful.
Are you still using the name of your cat for your passwords? And do you tend to use the same few passwords for all your accounts? Yup this is all very common. So what can you do about it?
Here are some super quick and easy ways everyone can have more secure passwords:
Don’t reuse passwords. Ever.
- Change your passwords often. Set reminders to do this and focus on those that hold credit card data.
- Write them down in a notebook if you really must. This is not great but so much better than using the same password for everything
- Better still start a password protected Word document
- Best of all use Password management software. There are plenty out there and some are free which I cannot vouch for but I personally use 1Password. It uses Dropbox to sync your data file so you can still login via your iOS devices.
- When possible use your password management software to generate the password for you. 1Password allows you to set the criteria for the password like the number of digits and numbers, whether it should be pronounceable etc. It then saves this for you so you never need see or remember that password again.
- If you do need to make up your own password – and there will be a few accounts you will want to remember your passwords for- here are a few ways to avoid your favourite cat:
- Use a mix capitals, numbers and symbols
- The longer the better but make sure it is at least 8 characters in length
- You can use the first letters of a song or poem so: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, Thou are more lovely and more temperate’ could become !*SicttasdTamlamt*!2000 – here you take the first letter of each word and add in a few symbols and digits
- String together random words like BlueAppleGame
- String together words with intentional (not common) spelling mistakes BlooAppolGaim
- Add some digits and symbols into the mix Bl%%App%lGa*m!
- Do not use sequences like 123456 or qwerty
- Do not use personal information
- Or maybe just use some password management software. I know I’ve said it before but at least you won’t be able to guess my passwords.
Francesca Geens owns Digital Dragonfly, specialising in addressing the technology needs of independent professionals. She can also be contacted via Twitter or LinkedIn.
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