Get A More Secure Password
So how do you know if you're using bad passwords? I'll show you some example of bad passwords and explain why they are bad.
computer - It's a dictionary word
amanda - It's a common personal name
buster - It's a common name for a pet
password - It's easy to guess
asdfg - It's a sequence of adjacent letters on the keyboard
You might also have noticed that all these suggestions of bad passwords only contained lower case letters and none of them contained any digits. If you have a password of 5 letters, all lower case, then there are almost 12 million (26^5) different combinations. That might sound like a lot of combinations, but if you've got a computer with a 3GHz processor and a brute force password generator it can generate about 3 million passwords per second. Your five letter password would then take four seconds to break. Now lets say that you use lower case letters, upper case letters and digits in your five character password. Then we get a total of 62 different characters which give us around 916 million (62^5) different. If we use this password instead of the other one it'll take around five minutes to break it. As you can see we still have a bad password. Better than the first one, but still bad.
What we need to do here is simply to increase the length of the password. If we increase the password length to 8 we will get almost 220,000 billion (62^8) combinations. It would then take that computer around 7 million years to generate all the possible combinations. All these calculations are based on a password containing purely random characters.
If you, like most people, have a password that matches one of the earlier examples of bad ones, like a dictionary word, then you can guess how fast a computer will break your password.
Related Tags: online, security, internet security, safe, protect, password, security blog
© Copyright 2007 Securistar
This article was written by Johan Bengtsson at Securistar.com. If you want to read more about computer security you can visit us at Securistar.com
Your Article Search Directory : Find in ArticlesRecent articles in this category:
- Never Undervalue Secure Backups
The Internet can be a very intimidating place. It is full of information, and every day new busi - Lack of Internet Privacy - One Step Away from Identity Theft
Four Reasons to Use Privacy Software Unless you are a spammer, hacker, terrorist, or other such - Site Security Issues Abound
It has happened web wide and it has happened to the best of the best - NASA, DOD, Google, Micros - Online Security: How Secure are You When You Get on the Internet?
Internet technology specialists widely agree that security is becoming the primary concern of th - Software Engineering Standards Providing Industry Integrity
Software engineering is a relatively new career field in technology today in comparison to other - Protect Your E-mail by Obfuscatoin
E-mail harvesting is the process of obtaining lists of e-mail addresses from the internet. This is u - Antispyware Host File - Protect Your Computer Now With This Simple Fix
An antispyware host file is a simple defence mechanism against rogue sites that are out to get you a - What Key Features Make The Best Spyware Removal Programs?
Range Of FeaturesThe best spyware removal programs should combine multiple features so that you get - Online Job Scams and Identity Theft-What Every Job Hunter Needs to Know
There are three main types of common online job scams:1. Phony Job Offers-With this type of scam, In - Spybot Sickness - Spyware Flue
When we talk about spyware symptoms, we talk about both how you get spyware and what the symptoms of
Most viewed articles in this category:
- Parental Control Software - How Will It Help My Family?
Parental Control Software such as Safe Eyes, is a set of tools that allows parents to control what o - Designing IE Exclusive Sites Is Counterproductive And Puts Your Visitors At Risk
Excuse me for being so forthright, but designing a web site exclusively for a specific browser is do - Mind the letters and words in your password.
Radhika Venkata (c).1. Don't choose predictable passwords like asending or desending numbers or lett - Safe Password Tips for Better Computer Security
With so many online accounts to manage, most people tend to use the same password for everything. M - Minimising Credit Card Fraud - For Online Retailers
Well organized criminal organizations steal credit card numbers in many different ways (virus progra - Fraud Prevention Tips
Current areas where mail order, telephone order, and Internet fraud are most prevalent include:* Wes - Money Scams: How to Avoid Getting Ripped Off
Scams take many forms: overseas lotteries, get-rich-quick schemes, work-from-home jobs and hundreds - Protecting Your Websites From Search Engines
There are a great number of scenarios in which you should be protecting your websites from the searc - The Best Internet Privacy Software
Detect, Protect, Dis-infect, Reject, Delete, then - RepeatThe best internet privacy software isn't a - The Most Effective Spyware Removers
There are a number of things you need to look for when you are seeking the most effective spyware re
