Now’s a good time to change those passwords

via Now’s a good time to change those passwords | Consumer Watch, clarionledger.com, 1/16/2013

Several years ago, the offices where i worked were burglarized. The thieves kicked in the back door and stole several computers, mine among them. When the burglars were finally caught, they told the police that they had sold one of the computers to another person, who then gave it to his girlfriend. The boyfriend kept calling the thief back, though, to find out the password, without which the computer was useless without extensive hacking. I had always insisted on strong passwords, and it gave me some satisfaction to know that the thieves weren’t able to access any sensitive information.

Passwords are one of the necessary safeguards which many take for granted. Unfortunately, since most of us have many passwords to remember, it can be tempting to use the same password over and over, or to choose something really easy to remember. The problem with that is that if it’s easy for you to remember, it’s probably also easy for hackers.

Each year, Internet security site SplashData.com publishes a list of the passwords most commonly encountered by hackers who post their results online. It’s interesting — and maybe a bit scary — to see how many people use the most common passwords. So here is the list. Here’s the list, and whether the rankings have changed.

# Password Change from 2011
1. password Unchanged
2. 123456 Unchanged
3. 12345678 Unchanged
4. abc123 Up 1
5. qwerty Down 1
6. monkey Unchanged
7. letmein Up 1
8. dragon Up 2
9. 111111 Up 3
10. baseball Up 1
11. iloveyou Up 2
12. trustno1 Down 3
13. 1234567 Down 6
14. sunshine Up 1
15. master Down 1
16. 123123 Up 4
17. welcome New
18. shadow Up 1
19. ashley Down 3
20. football Up 5
21. jesus New
22. michael Up 2
23. ninja New
24. mustang New
25. password1 New

If your passwords are on this list, now would be a good time to change them. Remember, a password is a lot like locking your car. If a thief really, really wants in, and has the right tools, he can probably get in. however, a good door lock will make it take longer, and hopefully he won’t want to take the extra risk, and will move on. Having to crack a password might make it harder for your data to be compromised.

The longer the password, the better. Randomness is also desirable, such as tgfde23$9. I like to create totally random sequences, and store them on an app called Keeper. Keeper and similar apps allow you to store passwords securely (although the app continually bugs me to upgrade.)

The bottom line: taking a few minutes now to create better passwords could save you a lot more later.