Top Secret – Coffey Break

Our information security tidbit for this week is all about passwords. You all probably know our standard policy for passwords — we require:

8 or more characters
Upper and lowercase letters
Numbers
Punctuation or symbols

Here are a few tips that can make it a little easier to do this and will help keep your accounts even safer.

Use a password that is at least 10 characters long. The longer the better. For this purpose, sometimes a phrase is good, perhaps the title of the last book you read with a little bit of punctuation and capitalization mixed in.
Don’t use common information in your password. Using your birthday, or your cat’s name, or even your favorite song is probably not a good idea, especially if you’ve posted about those things on social media in the past.
If you are having a hard time remembering your passwords, use the first letter of every word in a phrase you know. Then mix in some punctuation and capitalization. Presto! Instant password that’s pretty tough to guess!
Protect your password. No one should be told your password — not your professors, not your best friend, not even your boss. If someone else needs access to the particular resource you have access to, have them contact IT services. We can help!
Always, always, always change your password from the default.
Have different passwords for different accounts. Ever heard of a skeleton key? It’s a key that fits multiple locks and opens them all. Don’t use a “skeleton key” for your passwords. Having the bad guys get into one of your accounts is bad enough, but when they can use the same information to get into all of your accounts …
Utilize a password manager to remember passwords. The most secure way to store all your unique passwords is by using a password manager such as LastPass or 1Password. With just one password, a computer can create and save passwords for every account that you have – protecting your online information, including credit card numbers and their three-digit codes, answers to security questions, and more.

Let me know if you have any other clever ideas on great ways to come up with passwords. After all, we’re all in this together!