Password protection seems to be at the top of everyone’s minds nowadays thanks to hackers ruthlessly targeting personal accounts through security flaws in major corporations’ systems. Granted, you can’t always protect yourself entirely but there are proven methods to ensure that you have the highest degree of protection possible. After the jump we can tell you a little secret to create a very strong yet highly memorable password so you can make sure your accounts are secure as can be.
Many people who choose to create memorable passwords often include full words, birthdays, etc. Although they’re convenient to input, they can be more easily guessed and are consequently regarded as not being as safe. Another route is to have a computer randomly generate a string of numbers and letters for you, alternating in capitalization. This is certainly the most secure method available however it is extremely hard to memorize, particularly if you have unique passwords for each account (which you should).
We propose a new way of generating passwords that is abundant in possibilities, extremely secure, and so easy you don’t even need to memorize it because it’s always around you. We don’t know about you but we have a lot of pens and pencils hanging around our desk. (No trust us, we’re not diverging from the topic.) We suggest using these as a way of creating your secure passwords. Generally speaking, pens and pencils have a lot of stuff written along them so what we decided to do is take either the first letter or first two letters of each word, including any numbers, and create a password that way. This insures that the password is completely “random”, features both capital and lowercase letters, and also includes numbers. How about some examples?
Dixon Ticonderoga BLACK 2 HB can become:
DiTiBL2HB
BiC Round Stic M can become:
BiCRoStM
Or, if you want to include more numbers, you can simply substitute a number for the amount of letters in a word.
Sharpie R Fine Point Permanent Marker can become:
ShR4Po96
You can see how this becomes a very fruitful way of generating many passwords and the best part is that they’re safe because for all intents and purposes they’re “random” yet you can never forget them because it’s always around you. Hidden in plain sight!
(Image: Flickr member berrytokyo and Jamesongravity licensed for use under Creative Commons)
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Not a bad idea in general, but far better would be a solution that allows you to use different passwords on every site without any additional hassle. Towards that, I'd recommend a password manager application. They allow you to remember just one password, yet enjoy the security of having different passwords on every site.
1Password is my preferred manager, and I have it set to auto-generate and remember 16-character passwords (with complicated symbols and everything) for me for every site I visit. Not only that, but it automatically syncs with my iPhone and my Windows copy of 1Password on my Windows partition. And the developers of it put out new versions with bug fixes and feature tweaks on a near-daily basis. I fell in love with it after I got a chance to use a promotional copy of the previous version for free, and I gladly paid the full price when the next version came out (my promo copy wasn't eligible for upgrade pricing).
There are alternatives available, some of which I believe may be free, but the quality of 1Password is phenomenal, and the speed with which the developers react to customer feedback is outstanding.
I've been using a different method for about a year now. My passwords have a "base string" that is common in every password. The only thing I change are a few characters, and they are taken from the name of the service.
Let's say the base string is H93tyLo1. When I want to form a password for a service, unplggd for example, I take the first and last characters of the site's name and place them in the beginning and end of the base string and the password "uH93tyLo1d" is formed. This is a simplified form for example's sake, but you could add more characters to different positions and in varying case to make the password look even more random. Just remember to always use the same character positions so you won't have to remember anything else than the base string.
This is a pretty safe system for as long as you won't let anyone know how you form your passwords.
Here's some example password that use _Gl_4aB_ as the base string(underscores indicate the places for characters from service name). I use passwords much like this.
facebook / KGlf3aBO
last.fm / MGll4aBF
unplggd / DGlu4aBG
My method is I use a base password that was actually the very first password I ever made online. I have variations on it.
Replacing letters with numbers is good, but replacing some of those numbers in a pattern with their special characters can help secure your password even more.
Example:
base word: peanut
Base with numbers: p3anu7
Base with capital: P3anu7
Base with caps/special: P#anu&
Typically I would turn the word peanut into: 3P#anu7
The number that would be replaced first goes to the front then a capital letter, special character that shares the key as the number. Then replace the last letter with a number if I can easily remember it.
I use similar method to pichan but simpler version. I have basic password, lets say "12345" and then I add the webpages name or some memorable item from that webpage. Unplugged could then be "12345unplugged", Amazon could be "12345amazon". Feel free to add dashes or capital letters in some kind of system. Like "1.2.3.4.5-Un-Pl-Ug-Ge-D" or write backwards, like "12345-deggulpnu"
Now for some social engineering to find out pichan and Andsetinn's base passwords, now that they've clued us in.... mwahaha!!
I use patterns on the keyboard. fun to type = easy to remember. And they're not "words."
I'd like to recommend http://www.passwordcard.org/en
It's easy to use and remember.
This tip seems a little silly to me. I use the internet & my passwords in lots of different places, so the chances of having that same pen or pencil in front of me are pretty slim.