Data and information security has become even more important with the widespread use of computers and mobile devices for personal and work related activities.

Our banking, email and social networking accounts all store personal and sensitive information, such as date of birth, address and even credit card details. Although ‘protected’ by passwords, passwords need to be ‘strong’ and kept secure, in order to prevent thieves from ‘hacking’ them.

 

What is a ‘strong’ password

Studies reveal that the longer and more complex the password, the harder it is to crack. A strong password should:

• Be at least 8 characters in length
• Contain both upper and lowercase alphabetic characters (e.g. A-Z, a-z) 
• Have at least one numerical character (e.g. 0-9) 
• Have at least one special character (e.g. ~ ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ + =)

A ‘strong’ password must not

• Spell a word or series of words that can be found in a standard dictionary (e.g. angrybirds, mypassword, daisymae) 
• Spell a word with a number added to the beginning and/or the end (e.g. johnsmith1, password123, daisy8703) 
• Be based on any personal information such as user id, family name, pet, birthday, etc. (e.g. johnsmith, mydogrover, 10311978) 
• Be based on a keyboard pattern (e.g. qwerty) or duplicate characters (e.g. asdfgh, aabbccdd, 456789).

Creating your own strong password

Sometimes adapting a phrase, verse from a song, or line from a movie is a great way to, for example:

• C$200wpG. represents "Collect $200 when passing Go" from Monopoly
• sLuY3ah! Represents “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!”
• 2BoNtB!tItQ represents “to be or not to be that is the question”.

It’s your turn – try adapting the following into strong passwords!

• I sense great fear in you, Skywalker.
• The hills are alive with the sound of music.
• Holy haberdashery, Batman!

 

Check if your password is a strong password here: Password checker and then update your passwords and secure your information and data!