Just like there are criminals on our streets there such delivish fiends on the internet. Web security is often a hot topic. You can start keeping your personal information safe by making sure your have secure passwords.
Here are some tips on how to achieve that:
Password Rules
- Should be about 8 characters long.
- Should have at least 1 capital letter, 1 lower case letter, and 1 number or symbol such as “‘/*($% etc.
- Should not be based on your name, netid, or on words found in a dictionary.
- Should not be based on simple repeating patterns.
- And you should be able to type it quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder and pick it up that way.
Do NOT Do This
- Do not use personal information in your password that someone else is likely to be able to figure out. Obviously, things like your name, phone number, and address are to be avoided. Even names of acquaintances and the like should be avoided.
- Do not use words, geographical names, or biographical names that are listed in standard dictionaries.
- Never use a password that is the same as your account name.
- Do not use passwords that are easy to spot while you’re typing them in. Avoid passwords like 12345, qwerty (i.e., all keys right next to each other), and nnnnnn.
Try This Trick
If you are having difficulty picking a good password, one good method is to use the first letter of each word in a phrase you can easily remember. For example, “AusMarketing is the best internet company in the world” is “aitbicintw”. That will need some modification because you should have at least one uppercase letter, a number and a symbol too, so how about: AitbicintW*843
Another method is to intentionally use misspelled words, or words with a number or punctuation mark suffixed. For example: Co77ege.
The password should about 8 characters long. You can use
Common Mistakes
These are too easy to guess. Don’t use them.
- Your name
- Your spouse’s name
- Your parent’s name
- Your pet’s name
- Your child’s name
- Names of close friends or coworkers
- Names of your favorite fantasy characters
- Your boss’s name
- Anybodys name
- The name of the operating system you’re using
- The host name of your computer
- Your phone number
- Your license plate number
- Any part of your social security number
- Anybodys birth date
- Other information that is easily obtained about you
- Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
- Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
- A word in the English dictionary
- A place
- A proper noun
- Passwords of all the same letter
- Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
- Any of the above spelled backwards
- Any of the above preceded or followed by one or two digits
