In a recent conversation with a
network engineer that I am friends with, we talked about which is better a
complex password or a passphrase. Most people
these days are used to a password to access their various accounts from access
to either work computer, Social Media accounts, and even their personal email
accounts. During our conversation, he suggested moving away from the standard
password to a passphrase.
Now for those people who are not as
hip to the meaning in this case to a passphrase here is the answer. It
is a series of words that are used together to create a single password. This
new single password can then be used to access the user's account(s) where it has
been assigned. Although it may be harder to remember, the length of the
passphrase adds safety to the new password.
An example of a passphrase: happybirthdayonsundaywithdave87,
may not be the first thought for a hacker to consider coming up with to access
your accounts.
Below are the standard criteria for
password
·
At
least 1 Capital case letter
·
At least
1 Lower case letter
·
At
least 1 Number
·
At
least Special Character (! @, #, $, %, ^, &, *, <, > ,?, /) among
others
·
Must be
a minimum of 8 characters in length
Now the 8 characters in just a minimum
length, but people need to consider extending the length of the password for
their added safety. An example is: B3@cH!q8for = Beach1984 which is 9 characters
or #ApPy5)ndayq6to5 = HappySunday9625 which is 14 characters. The second one
may seem a bit harder to think of creating. Yet with a little creative thinking, it is possible, however, there are free sites online that will create complex passwords
for you.
During our conversation, I asked him
about his thoughts on passphrases that are more complex as in a longer passphrase
that uses special characters. He suggested that if I want to go down that path,
he would recommend it, but to make sure I can remember the sequence of words,
numbers, and special characters so that I do not lock out my account.
So, what is the take away from all of
this…there are pros and cons with both methods. And that whichever way you decide
to go with your password make it longer than 8 characters and work to use as many
numbers and special characters as possible.
Seth Blanken
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