Earlier this year, a post on lifehacker looked to see how someone would go about guessing one’s password. A couple helpful reminders.
Personal information (ex. friends, spouse, pet, school) can easily be found using Google, Facebook, etc. So, a password like “School-NameGraduation-Year” is not so good.
The difference between using only lowercase characters and using all possible characters (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters ? like @#$%^&*). Adding just one capital letter and one asterisk would change the processing time for a computer to scan through possibilities for an 8 character password from 2.4 days to 2.1 centuries.
Some passwords you think matter least actually matter most. For example, some people think that the password to their e-mail isn’t important because nothing sensitive goes there. Well, that e-mail address might be connected to your online banking account. If I can compromise it then I can log into the Bank’s Web site and tell it I’ve forgotten my password to have it e-mailed to me.
