Tips for choosing a strong password
Be careful when picking your password, many security
attacks on computer systems take advantage of users choosing weak
(easy to guess) passwords. Keep in mind that even if you believe
you do not have anything valuable in your account, in fact you
do have something of great value to attackers: a computer account
that can be used to send spam and other kinds of malware, and
to launch attacks against other systems.
The following are a few general guidelines on how to pick
a strong password:
- Avoid any password based on repetition, dictionary words,
letter or number sequences, usernames, relative or pet names,
romantic links (current or past), or biographical information
(e.g., dates, ID numbers, ancestors names or dates).
- Include numbers and symbols (punctuation marks and most
control characters are allowed in passwords).
- Use capital and lower-case letters
One possibility is to pick an easy to remember sentence and construct
a password from parts of that sentence. For example,
"SW&t7d's" stands for the phrase ``Snow White and the
seven dwarfs''.
Do not use any passwords that you used in other places, like
the university NetID, or accounts on other universities (places).
- Last updated: 3/18/2011 (MAL)