Passing the word on passwords
Posted 31 July 2007 at 8:33AM by Gina Kramer in Hints and tips
It seems the number of things we need to remember is ever increasing. It was difficult enough to keep track of birthdays, appointments and phone numbers, but now there are also pin numbers and passwords.
Passwords seem to be everywhere these days and if you have the memory of a goldfish (like me), then you've probably forgotten a password at some point or other.
Thankfully, with BT it's easy to reset passwords. From the BT Broadband Office website you can:
- Reset your password if you have forgotten it.
- Reset a secondary user's passwords if they have forgotten it.
Passwords protect our personal information from hackers, so having a secure password is really important. However, coming up with passwords that are safe and easy to remember is quite a tricky task.
Safety first
The more characters you use in your password, the harder it is to crack. Ideally, you should choose a password with a minimum of eight characters and change it in regular intervals. You can change your password from the BT Broadband Office website:
- Change your own password.
- Change a secondary user's password.
Your password should be a combination of letters and numbers, for example, k3yb04rd (the word 'keyboard' with some letters replaced by numbers). As passwords are case-sensitive, you can also use capital letters for added protection, for example, K3yb04rD.
Avoid using personal information that is easily accessible in your password, for example, names, phone numbers or dates of birth. You should also not use any words that can be found in the dictionary or words spelled backwards. Try not to put group numbers at the start or end of the password (for example, keyboard123) and do not use entirely alphabetical passwords unless they are nonsensical.
Remember, remember...
Luckily, there are a number of tricks that you can use (and combine!) to create a memorable and safe password.
Think of a sentence or phrase that you find easy to remember and remove the vowels, for example, "The Da Vinci Code" becomes ThDvncCd.
You can also use the first letters of a sentence or phrase, for example, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" becomes LitSwD.
My favourite method is to think of a sentence or phrase and replace letters with numbers that look similar to them, for example, use 4 for A, 8 for B, 3 for E, 1 for I, 0 for O and 5 for S. "The Davincy Code" becomes Th3D4v1nc1C0d3.
Tags: bt broadbandoffice, password
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Comments
2. At August 9, 2007 12:04 PM, Neil Muir wrote:
These suggestions are well known, and still encourage people to choose banal or simplistic keys or structures for their passwords. You should add further layers, so that even if one layer is cracked, the next one presents new difficulties.
We're always told not to write passwords down, but of course in the end we have to, in order to keep on top of the sheer numbers of passwords. But that written information should be encrypted.
A good start is to use a language other than English. Most of my password written reminders are based on my second language. If a hacker works that out, he comes to the next barrier, which is that the second language words or phrases etc. are of little use to him, as they're not the passwords themselves, but merely reminders to me of something, and that 'something' is what I use as the password.
So, for example, Welsh speakers among us should use Welsh for their notes. Perhaps a number needs to be remembered. Write it down in word form (I don't speak Welsh, so this illustration must be in English). Let's say it's 'four two seven seven three one'. Now take, not the initial letter of each word, but the second letter which, in this case, gives a reminder of 'oweehn'. And do it in Welsh anyway. If you've got to write it down, then let that be what you write down.
If you've lived abroad, use a multi-layer reminder of, say, the foreign registration number of the car that you owned while there. This isn't going to be known to any hacker, and nor could he guess himself to it. And you don't, in any case, write down the car's number in your list: all you need for your reminder is something like 'Coimbra, Renault'.
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1. At July 31, 2007 1:18 PM, David Crowther wrote: