Building a better password: Simple changes add strength

September 21, 2013

Twenty years ago, one of the biggest security concerns was that a colleague would learn your password from the post-it note you put on your screen. The solution was simple: Don’t write your passwords down! That was good advice, and most people could easily remember the two or three passwords that they needed. Since then, security threats have evolved beyond recognition, but our capacity to remember passwords has remained unchanged. We are still able to remember just two or three passwords, and most people choose relatively short and rather predictable passwords in order to be able to recall them. Password managers address this problem, but come with their own problems. What if malware breaks in and steals all the passwords? And what do you do—practically speaking—when you have a new or borrowed device? Layers of security First of all, we should revisit the advice from the 1990s. Today, the typical adversary is not a colleague looking over your shoulder, but a faceless hacker thousands of miles away. Writing passwords down on pieces of paper may not be such a bad idea—although we still don’t recommend sticking them to your screen. This makes particular sense as the number of passwords grows. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Link: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2049154/building-a-better-password-simple-changes-add-strength.html#tk.rss_all