This says it best. Seriously – how hard is it to protect yourself with a password? Lets go one step further on the subject and ask how many user names do you really have? Bank, Email, Another Email, Your School, Your Job, Instant Messenger, and .. and .. and .. How many of them are the same? LOL! right! If your really easy password gets hacked what could they get from you? Scary?
I am an Administrator. I rotate my passwords constantly. It goes without saying – you won’t ever catch me throwing caution to the wind and you should not either.
For my users I use a password randomiser. When I get a new user I will set up their email and password using the randomiser to create a 7 or 8 character alpha numeric password. I cut out that little sliver with the information and have the user slide it in front of their drivers license. This way they can safely look at their password if they need to, they will put it away when they are done, they wont lose it, and no one is going to be rummaging through their purse or wallet without having to answer some very direct questions.
The human mind needs 5 consecutive days to build up a habit. Typing that password will become very natural by the 5th day. Muscle memory is a neat thing. Most people will find themself jabbering the password verbally in their mind as they type their password.
I agree that strong passwords from a randomiser are not for the personal user. So I agree that coming up with a phrase no one would know that includes a number here or there is a great idea for generating a strong password.
A very cool way to apply a random password to every log in you have is to make small adjustments to a strong password you do know. Let me emphasize know. Make sure you got it first! Only when you do go around and update everything. Just add something to it. Take letters from the domain name or numbers from a phone number and append them to the beginning or the end of your strong password.
Wrpt27rz is a very random odd password no one I know has ever used including me. I just made it up. So for the hotmail account the password then is Wrpt27rzhot.
What if you think someone has figured it out. Just rotate the password. It is easy. Go back to your base password and change a character. This simple change is easy to pickup and remember around all of your passwords because they are so similar! I call this organized Chaos! It is a beautiful thing!
Have a good week!
Midnight Tech