You must be using different passwords for your email, Bank accounts, Social Media sites etc. Learn how to create strong yet memorable passwords to keep your precious private data safe online.
A strong password is your first and often last resort to protecting your crucial private data online. Here are 3 simple yet effective ways to create rock solid strong passwords for your email accounts, online banking accounts, forum accounts etc.
Passwords created via these methods will save you from common hacking attacks like Dictionary attack and brute force cracking.
In all these methods we will follow these 4 thumb rules:
- Replace all i and 1 with ! .
- Replace all E or e with 3 .
- Replace all a or A with @ .
- Replace all O or o with 0 (zero) .
- Replace SPACE with # .
1. Create Strong Passwords Using Phrases.
Create a 8 to 12 word whacky unique random impossible phrase.
For example:
“Winny jumped into ball with black fire water” (utterly meaningless but memorable).
Take third character of all words in your unique sentence.
nmtltart
Take an important year in your life other than your year of birth (as year of birth is a common information) and use it to pad your passwords. For e.g. say 1980 is an important year in my life when I graduated so I will use it to prefix and suffix my passwords like this:
19nmtltart80
Type it again with SHIFT key pressed alternately
!9NmTlTaRt*0
Apply our thumb rules. a is replaced with @. Finally our password is
!9NmTlT@Rt*o
Passwords strength can be checked using Passwordmeter. Results for this password is as below:
Hence you just need to remember your unique sentence and the set of rules that you followed. You can easily remember your password and create & regenerate it whenever you need.
2.Create Strong Passwords Using a Keyterm.
Choose an easy to remember Key Term like say,
victory band (A key term consisting of two words)
Type it again with SHIFT key pressed alternately. Note that SPACE is also considered a character here.
ViCtOrY BaNd
Now apply our thumb rules. Replace i with !, o with 0(zero), SPACE with #.
V!Ct0rY#B@Nd
Add a suffix with @sitename on which you will use the passwords. For e.g. if this password is for Yahoo, do this:
V!Ct0rY#B@Nd@y@h00
You can see that thumb rules have also been applied to the new site name suffix shown in red.
This way you can easily create strong memorable passwords for yourself. These passwords will be different for different websites due to the unique site specific suffix.
Passwordmeter results for this password are as below:
3. Create Strong Passwords Using Keyboard Layout.
Use a keyword or key term as above, for example say, victory band.
Now type this term by moving your fingers up one row on the keyboard. Hence instead of typing v you type f, then 8 for i, then d for c and so on.
Victory Band = f8d594xgqhe
However it is still not sufficiently strong. Now type first 5 or 6 letters (as you like) with SHIFT key pressed. This gives us:
F*D%($xgqhe
This is a strong password as tested on Passwordmeter.
These three ways of creating strong passwords which are easy to remember are fairly easy to learn and implement. Initially you may be slowed down while typing your passwords but you will learn your method quickly.
You just need to remember the thumb rules and your chosen method to create strong memorable passwords quickly and for a large number of web services.
This post was originally published on Indigic.com
