Safe Surfing@strong Password

Remember I said last time that I will discuss how to make passwords strong and hacker-proof? Well, I was hunting around for data on this topic when my eyes fell on this report presented by Bloomberg Businessweek based on data collated from various studies. The findings are so interesting and relevant to what I have to say that I decided to share them with you on my blog.

The report states that despite repeated warnings, 50% of computer users continue to choose a common word like ‘qwerty’ or ‘password’ or else simple key combinations like ‘12345’ or even combinations of simple letters and numbers, like ‘abc123’ as their passwords.

Just consider these facts:

A six-letter password in lower case takes a hackers’ computer just 10 minutes to crack. But if the same were in the upper case, it would take at least 10 hours for the computer to randomly decipher the password. If there are numbers and symbols in the password, it could take around 18 days to crack it.

If you were one of those who always have a finger on the global pulse, you would have noticed a sharp rise in the incidence of hacking frequently used sites, including the Visa and MasterCard sites. If such well protected, secure sites can fall prey to a hacker’s ploy, what about our data?

Isn’t it terribly upsetting, and scary, to know that your personal details could be compromised? I for one would lose my night’s sleep if I even got a whiff of the fact that someone is on the prowl, sniffing out my identity!

The report contained some useful suggestions. It said that a seven-character password, which includes letters in upper case, numbers and symbols, would take hacker 4 years to crack, and if the length is of nine characters, including numbers and symbols, it might take even 44530 years.

Well, that’s what I call heartening news, like a good, hot stew on a chilly day. I have promptly changed my password to a nine-character one, with numbers inserted in between letters. The combination is childishly simple, if you ask me, and very easy to remember, but when I changed my password on Facebook, the password strength was shown as strong.

I am now well-armed Messrs. Hackers, and so are my children. So while you will probably spend some 50000 years cracking our passwords, I will be getting my beauty sleep every night of my life.

The Internet is an uncharted world, practice safe surfing habits.

Stay safe!

Anindita

Tags: creating strong passwords, online safety, safe surfing

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