SEOenthusiast

Passwords. We use them every day. We have them for everything from LinkedIN to Facebook, to Twitter to our own WP sites, Paypal, online banking and more. And we’re all at risk, eh!

Why? Well, passwords aren’t so tough to crack, are they? Not really and for me, the remembering has always been the “toughest” part of same. But let me explain, eh while you look over this infographic from ZoneAlarm….

Had a client call just last week and asked if I could help them come up with a better password for their LinkedIN account…seems they’d been hacked somehow and while it was not a big deal in the scheme of things, it was worrisome enough to get them to call us.

My first question was, just how tough had they made their password to begin with…and as is most usual, they had no idea about my point at all. “We just used our company name and then added a 99 at the end….” was their reply and that made me begin to think about this error in judgement.

Why is such a password an “error of judgement” you might ask…and the answer (available from Google of course) is pretty simple….it’s an example of one of the most commonly used passwords out there…so a hacker need not have many skills at all to crack your LinkedIN account. Or your Facebook account. Or your bank account or Paypal account. It’s just that easy, eh! Wikipedia has a very interesting set of pages on this whole topic, and my own fav was here on their Password Cracking one…some stats there that just might be surprising, eh!

Using your name, your spouse’s name, your kids names, your middle name, your maiden name, your street name, your company name…and then just adding a “99? or a “123? is about the most common method that folks use out there. Or just use “password” – that outta work eh? Or “QWERTY” maybe? Or maybe just “123456? might work? Nope….the list of passwords that are most in use covers ALL of these as losers….and that’s to be expected.

Most of the advice you find on the web about passwords is actually pretty dang good. I liked this piece very much by Troy Hunt, a Microsoft MVP,  here…who went on to offer both criticism of bad password formulation thinking as well as some further advice on storing of those needed multiple password accounts. You need to read this, as it points out much that is obvious and from a guy who knows, eh! And I love his line “the only secure password is the one you can’t remember” eh!

As you may know, I love the guys over at Sophos, the online security firm and this video from Graham Cluley, is spot-on! Give it a look/see…and you’ll see what I did about a year ago. That this makes great sense….and while my own password has nothing to do with Bedrock citizens, the obfuscation of a phrase that has been a part of my life for decades worked well with me….and Graham made this easy for me to both understand and practice!

Incidentially, the Sophos channel over at youTube is chock full of other videos too…on a wide variety of security tips and tactics…and is well worth bookmarking too, eh!

Passwords. A necessary evil….for those multiple accounts….it’s an issue we all face. But better “faced” than “hacked” eh!