There's an old saying in the IT world: Passwords are like underwear. You should change them often, and never share them with strangers.
When my friend got her first internet banking account setup, she told me the password was password. 2 months ago, she asked me to pay a bill for her while she was out and her password was—you guessed it—still password.
I know I know, I say it all the time—but you MUST change your passwords on occasion. At a minimum, I use the time that the clocks change as a reminder to change all of my passwords, and I do mean all of them.
Internet banking, email, YMC, or any other website, if it’s got a password, now is the time to change it.
But what makes a good password?
• Ideally its made up of a combination of upper and lower case letters, as well as some special characters.
• It should be should be more than 8 characters.
• It should never be a word that can be found in a dictionary. The bad guys know to try those first (and remember there are dictionaries in every language so using the word fromage instead of cheese isn’t going to trick anyone.)
A Bad password
• Is your name, or the name of your family members.
• It’s the word ‘password’ or a variation ‘passw0rd’
• It’s your address
• It’s the name of your pet.
• It’s comprised of birthdates
• It’s your phone number
• It’s any segment of your Social Insurance number
• It’s something someone could figure out using a software program.
Microsoft has a cool way to generate a great password
Start with a sentence like: YMC is a great place
Remove the spaces between the words: YMCisagreatplace
Turn the words into shorthand, or intentionally misspell a word: YMCisagrtplc
Add length with numbers: YMC1sagr8plc2012
Use the Microsoft Password checker to check the strength of your password.
And a reminder? Don’t use the same password for all of your sites. Chances are you’re using the same user ID right? So if the appointment booking portal for your massage therapist is hacked and they have your password, they can easily try other websites with the same combination to see what they can come up with.
So, what are you waiting for! Change your passwords now. We’ll be waiting right here when you’re done!
Ps. While we’re talking about springing ahead, another thing I want you to do this weekend is backup your files. Now, I’ve preached the reasons for backing up your files MANY times before but take the time to do it this weekend. There are cheap (and free) ways to make this process easy, so save yourself tears and headaches and do it!
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