We’ve all seen that dreaded message, “Password not Strong Enough.” How do you create a password strong enough to be safe? Firstly, the old “replace it with numbers” trick did not age well. Turning “password” into “p4ssw0rd” may look more complicated to humans, but it is very simple for a computer to crack.
It seems that everyone has their own set of “rules” and tips for password creation, so let us go over a few. We will be scoring these (using Kaspersky.com) by the amount of time an average home computer would take to guess these passwords, if the said account were to be targeted.
The most obvious way to strengthen a password is to lengthen it. The more characters, the more characters a computer must guess. It makes it even harder to guess if the password is a long mix of lowercase and capital letters, as well as numbers. Turning your “password” (1 day to guess) into “Pa55W0rd” (2 days to guess) doesn’t help much with security. Making the password longer by adding characters is much more effective, however. For example, “00Pa55W0rd00” increases our 2 days to 12 days for a computer to figure out.
Others suggest using phrasing instead of a single word. If we instead use a multi-word phrase, it helps tremendously with the lengthening of passwords, as well as the complexity. “D0ntF0rgetY0urPassw0rd” can bump our safe time from 2 days to 7 centuries; now that is a big difference. One more thing to contribute to the complexity of your passwords are symbols. Not all symbols are accepted for every type of account, but you should make use of them when you can. “D0nt_F0rget_Y0ur_Passw0rd” brings our 700-year safety period up to 10,000+ centuries. We tend to think that is pretty safe.
There are countless other options for password creation, some using truly random password generators, some even include rolling dice for a random phrase sheet. Programs like Google Chrome and LastPass can generate secure passwords for you. However you decide to secure your accounts, remember, keep it long and complex.