{"id":243,"date":"2011-09-16T19:06:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T19:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=243"},"modified":"2011-09-16T19:06:38","modified_gmt":"2011-09-16T19:06:38","slug":"psstcan-you-keep-a-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/psstcan-you-keep-a-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"Psst\u2026Can You Keep a Secret?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, let\u2019s take a quick poll\u2014everybody whose email password is password<\/em><\/strong>, please raise your hand\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026if you raised your hand, please go directly to your computer and change your email password now<\/strong> (do not pass GO, do not collect $200, etc., etc.).\u00a0 The rest of you might want to wipe those smug grins off your faces, because your passwords are probably not much more secure!\u00a0 Read on for the Top 3 reasons why your password is probably not good enough.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. <\/strong>It\u2019s too short! <\/strong>Bigger is better here\u2014the longer your passwords can be, the harder they are to guess or crack through automated attacks.<\/li>\n
  2. <\/strong>It\u2019s too obvious! <\/strong>People like to make up passwords they can remember, but if your password is repetitive, uses common words or number sequences, or is biographical in nature (your birthday, your pet\u2019s name, your street address number), it can be figured out pretty quickly, either through an automated attack, or by someone who knows your details.<\/li>\n
  3. <\/strong>It\u2019s a single point of failure! <\/strong>Using a single password for multiple sites is a no-no\u2014if you use the same password for Facebook that you use for your online banking account, you might as well leave your ATM card out on the street.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Each of the above points can be dealt with\u2014the trick is to do so in a way that doesn\u2019t make your life all about managing your passwords.<\/p>\n

    One simple way to make your passwords long enough, and really<\/em> hard to guess, is to take some common words at random and make a phrase out of them\u2014something like \u201cquick pancake window bumper<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 Believe it or not, this phrase is really hard to crack for humans and<\/em> computers\u2014it\u2019s just too random and too long to be guessed in a reasonable amount of time.\u00a0 And the upside?\u00a0 It\u2019s so weird that you will have no problem remembering it!<\/p>\n

    Now, how to tackle the problem of keeping track of multiple passwords?\u00a0 We\u2019ll defer to renowned security expert Bruce Schneier, who wrote in 2005:<\/p>\n

    \u201cSimply, people\u2026are much more secure if they choose a password too complicated to remember and then write it down. We’re all good at securing small pieces of paper. I recommend that people write their passwords down on a small piece of paper, and keep it with their other valuable small pieces of paper: In their wallet.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

    In a perfect world, nobody would need passwords because everybody would respect the privacy of others.\u00a0 In the real<\/em> world, people are just itching to hack into your email and steal your credit card info.\u00a0 So play it safe and make sure your passwords are long, hard to guess and kept safe.<\/p>\n

    And keep an eye out for speedy breakfast goods, while you\u2019re at it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Okay, let\u2019s take a quick poll\u2014everybody whose email password is password, please raise your hand\u2026 \u2026if you raised your hand, please go directly to your computer and change your email password now (do not pass GO, do not collect $200, etc., etc.).\u00a0 The rest of you might want to wipe those smug grins off your … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,73,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-solutions","category-security","category-tech-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.islandtechnologies.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}