We are now a few months into 2012 and computer security is still an important topic. Use our password generator to create a new password for this year. Update all your banking passwords and any site where your credit card or personal information is stored.
The best passwords for 2012 are the same as previous years: include as many characters as possible with a mixture of upper/lower case letters, numbers and symbols. Don’t repeat the bad habits of using lazy passwords.
Hacker groups over the last few years have exposed millions of user passwords. Lists of bad passwords reveal many simple and predictable passwords.
Some are lazy keyboard passwords like “qwerty”, “asdfasdf” or “123456”. Then there are security related passwords like “password” or “secret” or “private”. Strange passwords like “cheese” and “monkey” are also common.
You can bet that anytime someone tries to break into a website that they start with those passwords. Use our site to select a better password today.
Where do you store your passwords? On a sticky note attached to your monitor? In a spreadsheet on your computer’s desktop? Or do you have a piece of software that securely stores all of your passwords?
Everyone using the Internet these days has dozens of passwords. (Remember: that it is always a great idea to use different passwords on different sites.) Storing your passwords is important because your favorite web browser will not store your passwords for all sites. Banking sites, in particular, are designed to not store your passwords the way other sites store them.
Writing your passwords on sticky notes or in a notebook is probably the most common method used by people. Some people prefer this method because they can tell someone they trust where to find their passwords in case of death. It is also the easiest way to access your web sties if your computer dies or is lost/stolen.
Another method is to save them in a spreadsheet saved to your computer. For extra security, add password protection to the spreadsheet, give it an obscure name and store it in a hard to find folder on your computer. But beware that if anyone has unlimited access to your computer (if it was stolen!), it would eventually be found.
Another solution is to use a piece of software like KeePass. It is a downloadable piece of software that saves all your passwords. It is password protected so you only have to remember one password to access your other passwords.
These methods work best for home users where there are no untrustworthy people snooping around your computer area.
How many different passwords do you have for the websites you use? I hope the answer is more than one.
It is highly recommended that you use a different password on each website that you visit. Especially if you have valuable personal information on those websites. Recent data exposed by hacker groups found that many users have the same passwords on multiple sites.
Why should you care? If a website that you use is hacked – or if a webmaster turns to the dark site – someone could have access to all your other sites. By creating different passwords for every site, you can protect yourself from events happening beyond your control.
If the thought of having different passwords for every site you use is overwhelming, then at least try to divide your sites into tiers. Use one password on sites that don’t store sensitive data (sports, news or blogs). Have a different password on sites that could expose personal – but not financially ruining – information (facebook, twitter, etc.) But for banking and investment sites you should always have different passwords.
Security professionals say the best password is a mixture of completely random letters, numbers and symbols. Longer passwords are always better. Longer passwords are harder to guess by humans and more difficult to figure out by ‘brute force’ computer attacks.
Unless you create an easy to remember mnemonic device for your random passwords, you may never be able to log in without referring to your password cheat sheet. There is a trade off between usability and security.
Example of a mnemonic password reminder: bY$4cC@Fri = bring Your $ for cupcakes on Friday
Our site provides passwords using words and numbers and symbols at any length. The words are randomly chosen and the letters are randomly capitalized.
One of our passwords: gRIG54Daks@
Thousands of people visit our site every day to create passwords. From system administrators to casual computer users. So give our random password generator a try. Use one of the passwords or let it ‘inspire’ you to modify it and create a password that you can remember.
Thanks for reading and stay (cyber) safe.