A Few Words on Passwords

WHAT PLANET ARE YOU ON?

As regular travelers on the information superhighway, we live (or die) by our passwords.

Your email accounts, your blog login, your social network logins (all fifteen of them). They all have passwords. In the real world, these logins should all be unique and virtually unbelievably undeniably uncrackable.

But who lives in the real world?

PROTECT YOUR PASSWORD LIKE THE PLAGUE

I love to empower my client with new web tools. It makes me happy when they want access to their control panel so they can update their own database-driven site. But truth be told, deep down, I cringe a little.

So I give them a little speech about login security. “Here are your passwords, please change them as soon as possible.  Keep them in a secure place… blah, blah, blah.”

Some of them tune me out. I know this because months later I can still log in to their control panel (with the same passcodes I gave them).

THIS IS THE REAL WORLD

So here’s a quick password checkup.

• Can your password be found in a dictionary?
• Is your password the name of a pet or your first grade teacher?
• Is your password on a sticky note next to your computer?

If you answered any of those questions in the affirmative, you’re not in the real world. (Sorry to be so blunt).

Head over to PCTools and get you some cool secure codes by using an online password generator. You can even generate passwords for your wireless modem (which are generally longer and use all those funky characters).

Next, promise me you’ll never keep another password in plain site again.

ON LOCK DOWN

Where can you keep your passwords?

• Extremely low tech: in a notebook that you lock in a filing cabinet (remember where you put the key… LOL)
• Medium tech: in a password-protected Excel file (and set up your computer to go in password-protected sleep mode when idle; settings done in the Excel Options tab)
• Higher tech: use DropBox.com (a download for Windows, Linux, and Mac)

Got questions or comments? Drop me a line at linda@1721media.com.

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