Do you have a strong password?

[JessicaAnn]

Ours at work are supposed to be "strong", too--and we have to change them every month. I'm getting tired of trying to think up new passwords!

One of the systems my mom uses at work requires her to change her password monthly. She usually picks one word at the beginning of the year, such as Coffee. And then adds the number of the month to the end. For example, February's password would be Coffee02; October's password would be Coffee10; etc.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I have the same password for everything, but it's a phrase, and no one would ever get it in a million years, so I feel OK about it. It's nothing significant, in fact it really means nothing, which makes it a perfect password.

chase utley rocks my world

password pwned.

 

[MsPurrl]

One of the systems my mom uses at work requires her to change her password monthly. She usually picks one word at the beginning of the year, such as Coffee. And then adds the number of the month to the end. For example, February's password would be Coffee02; October's password would be Coffee10; etc.

Unfortunately, we can't do that.

 

[BVS]

***************™

 

[deep]

i have easy passwords


i try and use 4 characters
if they will let me

I hate it when some require 8
and require at least 2 of them be numeric

i'm kind of lazy and think that I am playing the long odds of not being hacked

vegas loves me

 

[deep]

I tried using all astericts

like some of you


but they would not accept them

 

[AtomicBono]

Has anyone ever used "password" as a password?

I used to use that, and "qwerty" but it was typically for unimportant things, where if someone hacked into it, it wouldn't really matter

I've got one password I use a lot, which is a combination of two albums I like and a number...it's all lowercase though so I guess it's not strong. I've started diversifying though...one time I went into my iTunes and my name, address, and phone number had been changed to some guy named Sean my password had been "christmas" at that point; I changed it to something much harder to guess also my bank password is a conglomeration of the beginning few letters/numbers of some DVDs above my computer. So, easy for me to remember cuz all I have to do is look up. Not so easy for someone to guess. I also have some passwords that are song titles or lines from a song that stick out to me (with spaces and all).

 

[MsMofoGone]

No. My passwords are the same for everything, only my e-mail is different.
I have never had any incident happen at one time or another to feel it's necessary to have to change my passwords.

So, I don't believe I have to concern myself to actually worry about it further. Should I start ??

 

[Liesje]

MsMofo, the several incidents we have had were more people using passwords to try to get further into our system, not really steal any info from THAT particular person. Some employees on-campus (like myself) have access to our LDAP which is the database that contains all of the info about everything (all personal info, transcripts, contact info, SSNs, etc). So, in my experience, the password itself or the information belonging to the person who has the hacked password isn't really what they are after.

Our network security team had a computer science professor hack people's passwords in just minutes. It's not a person guessing, it's a program running through all of the possibilities. Thus, the more characters and character sets are required, it becomes exponentially more difficult to crack. Our requirement was 6-8 characters and this guy hacked them with programs he was able to easily obtain, just to prove to the team that it WAS a cause for concern.

 

[MsMofoGone]

Lies, I understand what you're saying. But, what I mean when I say 'I don't feel it's necessary to worry about it' ... is IF there's no harm with your OWN info.

Some incidences DO indeed happen where people's info is stolen and NEVER used. I don't think it's cause for concern UNLESS your info is stolen and used for other reasons than what it is originally there for, as that's when it becomes dangerous. You know, to say that NO ONE can find out anything about someone is absolutely false ... just look in a phone book and there's your name, home address and phone number for anyone to know.

Once your address and phone number is found out, it seems there's ways to find out everything else, IF someone really wanted to. (such as SS#, Drivers Lic #, account info, etc.) And, it doesn't matter that sites are secure ... although, it does make it alot harder to find out personal info ... it's not completely impossible.

Maybe that's why I think changing password info is not as necessary, UNLESS it would be found out. Sometimes when info has not been refreshed in some systems, it does NOT resurface as easily. And by resurface, I mean sometimes it is NOT obtainable to find as quick as info that is more currently accessed.

I think the shorter charactered passwords are indeed harder to master trying to crack. Usually, 2 characters is NOT as easy as say 8 or more. Only because the more info you feed into a site/program, the more likely that info can be exposed faster than smaller amounts. I say this because a computer's job is to obtain info AND the more info it has ... the easier it is for a site/program to obtain.