What NOT to do!

1. Use the word “password”.
2. Use consecutive set of numbers or letters: “123456789” “abcdefg”
3. ANY dictionary word alone or with a set of numbers – for ex: “fluffy505”

What to do…

1. Test your password at the Password Meter.
2. The longer the better. I use a 30+ character password for my wireless network, but keep in mind that some sites/applications limit the length to 8 characters.
3. Mix it up: UPPER CASE lower case. Break up a word/name and put it in and around numbers.
For example: Say you lived in Portland, ME from 1978 to 1994 -

pO19rT78lA19nD94 Looks awful, but it makes sense. (lower case, UPPER CASE, number)

Can you add punctuation? (Some sites & applications will let you.) Even better!

pO19rT78!@19nD94
! = i or l
@ = a
# = h
$ = s

Seriously, I have more than a dozen passwords that I use in my life and I rarely have to look them up, because they make sense and have meaning to me.

4. Another idea- Use acronyms:
Take a line from a favorite song, one whose lyrics you remember and use the first letter from each word, or create a pass phrase. Throw in some numbers and punctuation.

“My cat’s tail is as long as he is” mCtIaLaHi20+03

“Oh, what a beautiful morning, oh, what a beautiful day…” OwAbM88oWaBd!

Finally, PLEASE don’t use just one password for everything!! Try at least to come up with a base password and change it slightly for every site.

Here’s a story that caught my attention this week. From the Today show:

What happened to Malcolm Riddell should not happen to anyone — but it can and does, and that’s the cautionary tale shared by the Florida man, whose garden-variety wireless Internet signal was ”stolen” by a criminal to distribute his library of more than 10 million child pornography photographs.

What a nightmare!  Read the full story here.

Securing your wifi connection isn’t difficult – Here are instructions. As always, creating a strong password is a good idea. Want one that is cryptographic-strength? Try Steve Gibson’s Perfect Passwords Generator.