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Is your password weak?

30
May
2011

Are you one of the many people who is using a dangerously easy-to-guess password?
Now is the time to fix that before it’s too late.

Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, LinkedIn, Gmail, Rediff and Yahoo are amongst the popular websites which are used by most of the people.
And most of these websites are advising users to change their passwords.

The issue is that many people (33%) use the same password on every single website. That means that if your password gets stolen in one place (Linkedin, Facebook), it can be used to unlock access to other sites too.

Unfortunately, many people choose very poor passwords, that are easy for intruders to guess. The intruders know about the most commonly chosen passwords and are quick to try them out when trying to break into your accounts.

Malware like the infamous Conficker worm carried a lists of commonly-used passwords built into them – and have used them to spread further.

Avoid creating passwords using:
Dictionary words in any language.
Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.
Sequences or repeated characters. Examples: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).
Personal information. Your name, birthday, driver’s license, passport number, or similar information.

So, clearly people need to get out of the habit of using the same password everywhere, and they also need to ensure that their passwords are not easy to guess or crack.


There are many ways to create a long, complex password. Here is one way that may make remembering it easier
http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/passwords-create.aspx


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