This was recently shared with me and thought it was a good idea to pass it along:

Passwords are the key method that most applications and websites verify that you are who you say you are. The trouble is: they are so valuable, bad guys love to steal them. Then they get to pretend they are you, and the next thing you know, they have emptied your bank accounts.

A recent survey showed that 73% of people use the same password across all their accounts (banking, work logins, Facebook/MySpace, etc.)

You’re now thinking: “Well, yeah, I use the same password because it is too hard to remember 10 different passwords.” I’ve got an alternative for you that will help decrease your risk but should still be manageable. Create yourself three passwords… one for your banking and financial sites, one for work, and a third for less important sites such as those coupon sites or news sites. That gets you down to only three different passwords to remember!

Any password based off of an actual word in the dictionary, like M0nd@y1, is actually very weak. Even altering the “o” to a zero or the “a” to @ and adding a number at the end doesn’t help much. Those sort of common substitutions are known by the bad guys and they can guess them pretty quickly.

Instead of a password think of a passphrase such as “my dog is red and purple”. You can use the first two characters of every word and get “mydoisreanpu”. How about we add some capitalization, a number or two, and a couple of special characters to get “*myDOisR3@nPU*” Now there’s a strong password that’s 14 characters long with special characters, capitals, and a number… all based off of a single short memorable phrase.

Do you see the patterns used to alter the pass phrase? If you pick a single pattern such as 1) first two characters of each word in the passphrase, 2) capitalize those two characters for every other word, 3)always lead and end with a *, and, finally, 4) replace “E” with a 3 and “A” with an @ you will be able to remember your password construct every time. Create your own pattern!

Finally, I have a few other points for you to remember about passwords and account security.
1. Never, ever, share your password with anyone.
2. Don’t let anyone use your identity! If they are logged on as you then as far as the system is concerned they ARE you.
3. Don’t write down your password! Also, don’t write down your passphrase or the pattern you use to construct your password from your passphrase.
4. Always lock your screen (in Windows just press the “Windows key” and “L”) or logoff when you are leaving your computer. Even if you are just headed to the bathroom for a minute.

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