Passwords etc

[Westward]

I use all sorts of different usernames and passwords for computer stuff.  A friend said to me today "why bother? I just use the same passwords for everything"

Surely this is unwise?  Or is it? 

[JeffD]

More than unwise down right fool hardy, I ran a program at work to crack staff passwords, nothing naughty it was part of my job, we cracked over 25% of the staff passwords.

No problem using a single password for the likes of forums but make it a good one, but for everything else individual passwords are essential, never use names and always have at least 6 characters that includes upper and lowercase letters and numbers. A typical password that is easy to crack could be transport but if you change this to Tran5p0rT it becomes much harder to crack but still easy to remember.

[Westward]

Yes totally agree with above comment.  But where's best place to keep note of all passwords etc.  I can't remember them all, I need them written down somewhere for reference. 

Not telling you where though!      ........   :-)

[Miadanu]

Foolhardy is right...

I'd add to Jeff's advice to use a minimum of 15 characters for anything sensitive that you want to protect and include at least two each of words, uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters (some sites let you use spaces as special characters).

There are a number of reputable options for storing all your passwords securely and using one LONG passphrase to access them.  Last pass, Keepass to name just two.

If you're interested, there's an excellent book called 'Perfect Passwords' which explains why passphrases are better than passwords, different techniques of building secure memorable passwords, etc.

We've just had to force change everyone's passwords at work as on testing we found a disturbing number that were cracked far too easily using dictionary attacks and brute force, someone even used Password1 !!!

[BobnDot]

Here's an interesting site for checking the length of time it could take to crack various passwords.

https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm

My system password, 13 characters long, at one hundred trillion guesses per second, could take up to 38.9 centuries to exhaustively search the various combinations  ......All 12,234,484,467,962,423,342,750,185,933,108 of them  .

Bob.

[8 Hairy Feet]

Yes totally agree with above comment.  But where's best place to keep note of all passwords etc.  I can't remember them all, I need them written down somewhere for reference. 

Not telling you where though!      ........   :-)

I guess on a piece of paper filed under S for secrets
in your dictionary