How Secure Is My Password...?

Password is a very important key element in security. Setting up the passwords for your accounts is a very important thing, but everybody choose simple passwords like their cats name, their girlfriends/boyfriends name and so on. For accounts that are not very important, you can choose anything. But when you set up your PayPal account, your email account, even your Facebook account, be sure you will choose a strong password.

What is a strong password? Considering that anyone can break a password that is shorter than 8 letters in less than 2 hours, you should try a longer password. If you choose one with 12 letters, it will take more than 17000 years. Another tip is to use letters, numbers and special characters. Change the letters with number or use that so called hacker writing style. For example, don’t write download. Instead write d0wnl04d. It is almost the same, but is harder to crack. Or if you want to put your girlfriends name instead of Elisabeth you can write 3l1s4b3th.

Watch Common Craft's video on secure passwords for a good video overview of what makes a password secure.

To check how strong is your password; I found a handy website that estimates how long it would take for an average desktop computer to crack a password. It’s called howsecureismypassword.net.

How Secure Is My Password is a simple site with a singular focus, forcing you to think about the strength of your passwords. Enter any string of characters and it will tell you how long a brute force attack against that password would take using modern computers.

You are unable to make a complex or robust password ….? Then I will suggest you should try this website makemeapassword.net it’s a great website which gives suggestions on creating complex password. 

Lesson:

Add some complexity and length to your password to greatly improve its strength and the security of the systems your password is designed to protect.

NOTE: For the sake of security, we'd strongly recommend constructing fake passwords for testing purposes rather than using your actual password. Consider the site an interesting exercise about how adding a few characters and symbols to your password can increase its security. You can never be too paranoid about security!

Article By 
J.SAMRAJ 
Final year-IT