Increase your password security

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Nice tip from our budding security expert !

Rep given

 

my password is only 8 characters long but contains numbers aswell as letters. Do you suggest I change it then?

 

What happens if the word you have used is a made up word you used to say as kid which sounds like a proper word but is spelled how you would say it when you were a kid?

 

I do have 15 character one for hotmail which includes numbers and letters but not fo login just the word I used to say as kid.

 

I guess I should stop using "password" as my password, then eh?

Qs

 

I know lots of people who do that

 

bugger that. I have enough issues changing my password every 45 days, to a 9 character password, not used in the past 12 passwords, to worry about trying to come up with a password greater than 14 characters as well.

 

Hmm, GBL will have to brush up on his social engineering defence now though..
I would suggest changing it with a few CapiTals and include some numb3rs\symbols in there if you can

 

...except most online places don't accept passwords that long... and some will truncate them without you knowing it. Older Windows OSes simply disregard the trailing characters in passwords that long.

Plus, using passwords that long are more likely to include dictionary words in order to help you remember them, which makes them far, FAR easier to crack than a more complex string of 8 characters. Thus, in my opinion, 15-character passwords are often LESS secure than shorter, more complex passwords.

EDIT: For those who think it's enough to add in capitals and "leetspeak" characters, you need to do a little research on how easy it is to add those combinations into dictionary attacks.

 

What you mean my password, which is password, is not secure!

Damn you, I shall think of another one, maybe Password

 

Been there, done that, check Page 1

Qs

 

I make it a personal goal to learn at least 1 new fact/thing/misc every single day. Today this was it. Thanks!

Repped!

 

You fail to mention its advantages with regards to brute force attacks... it'd take longer to attempt
reservoir, r3servoir, r3s3rvo... etcetc
so it's still increased its security in comparison to a plaintext lowercase string.