A strong password is usually 10-18 characters long, upper and lower case, with numbers and symbols. Unless the password is something that can be easily guessed like, “Ilovemycat!1”, it can take years for a hacker to crack the code. A good, strong password should be complex, but not too complex that you forget it. In this article, we will show you just how you can come up with one. But first, you must know how hackers figure out passwords.
Password hackers use a process that is automated by computers. There are two main techniques that they use. Brute-force attacks and dictionary attacks. A brute-force attack tries every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to crack a password. It’s the least complicated way to crack a password, but also the most ineffective since it wastes a lot of time making unlikely guesses. A dictionary attack enters every word in a dictionary as a password. This removes some of the randomnesses of a brute-force attack, reducing the amount of time needed to find the password—provided that the password is in the dictionary, of course.
Note that “dictionary” doesn’t literally refer to a simple English dictionary; the entries in a cryptography dictionary may include common substitutions (for instance, “4pple” for “apple”) and numeric entries. Don’t rely only on obvious substitutions.
Below is how long it takes a hacker to crack your password using brute force.
A great password should also be one that you can memorize. Password managers are a great way to keep track of the 100 different logins you need for work. The Miller Group recommends LastPass to keep track of your passwords. You can randomly generate a password that would be impossible to crack and can be easily accessed. The problem with password managers is that:
- you need a master password that you must memorize
- you can’t log in to your computer or other devices with it.
This is why having a strong password that you can memorize is so important.
Now it’s time to actually create your hack-proof password! There are many methods to creating a strong password but we believe the Passphrase method is the easiest to remember. The Passphrase method simply turns a phrase into a password. Let’s say you are a big fan of Broadway Musicals and your favorite one is The Phantom of the Opera and it was first performed in 1989. So for the first part of your password can be TPotO89. We can also say that 1989 was the year you lived on 602 Sailor street. So now your password is TPotO89@602$a!lor. Notice that the S was changed to a dollar sign and the I was changed to an exclamation point to add symbols to the password. According to our chart, it would take 93 Trillion years for a hacker to guess your password. I think they would eventually give up.
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Stephen King is our Chief Technology Officer, and has the longest tenure as a technician at The Miller Group. Stephen puts his extensive experience to use for the good of our clients, providing expert technical support, as well as leadership, and guidance to other members of our technical staff.
