We wanted to provide some helpful best practices for keeping your passwords strong and secure as provided by our partners and security awareness experts, KnowBe4.
Tips for Password Security:
- Keep your passwords private – never share a password with anyone else.
- Do not write down your passwords.
- Use passwords of at least eight (8) characters or more (longer is better).
- Use a combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers,
and special characters (for example: !, @, &, %, +) in all passwords.
- Avoid using people’s or pet’s names, or words found in the dictionary;
it’s also best to avoid using key dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc.).
- Substituting look-alike characters for letters or numbers is no longer
sufficient (for example, Password” and “P@ssw0rd”).
- A strong password should look like a series of random characters.
How to Create a Strong and Complex Password (Follow These Steps):
- Think of a phrase or sentence with at least eight words. It should be something easy for you to remember but hard for someone who knows you to guess. It could be a line from a favorite poem, story, movie, song, lyric, or quotation you like.
- Example - I Want To Put A Dent In The Universe.
- Remove all but the first letter of each word in your phrase.
- Replace several of the upper-case letters with lower-case ones, at random.
- Now substitute a number for at least one of the letters.
- Example - iWtpAD1tU (Here, we’ve changed the capital “I” to the numeral 1).
- Finally, use special characters ( $, &, +, !, @) to replace a letter or two -- preferably a letter that is repeated in the phrase. You can also add an extra character to the mix. (Here, we’ve replaced the “t” with “+”, and added an exclamation point at the end.)
- Example - iW+pAD1tU!
- Pro Tip - Don't use the password listed here as your password!
If you are looking for help with either security awareness training or password management for your team - please reach out to INT - we would love to help!