Introduction

Passwords are often the only defense for your important data and services access. They prevent access to bank accounts, Internet services, email and many other various accounts. Linknet recommends that customers follow the following guidelines for password creation to help prevent abuse or loss of your data.

Weak and Strong Passwords

Password can be easily guessed or cracked by hackers. Often using various cracking programs that do a process called a “Dictionary Attack” upon the location that requires access. A “Dictionary Attack” is a method used to break security systems, in which the attacker systematically tests all possible passwords beginning with words that have a higher possibility of being used, such as names and places. The word “dictionary” refers to the attacker exhausting all of the words in a dictionary in an attempt to discover the password. Dictionary attacks are typically done with software instead of an individual manually trying each password.

The only real way to prevent hackers from discovery your password is to have, what they call a strong password. Strong passwords are made up of random alphanumeric characters and generally are longer than 12 characters.

For example, the passwords “fredgrey” or “byronbay” would be considered weak passwords. An example of a strong password would be “a8l3ToAccEss” or “b3D0rs1e3p1y”.

Good to use combinations of the below:

• uppercase letters such as A, B, C;
• lowercase letters such as a, b,c;
• numerals such as 1, 2, 3;
• special characters such as $, ?, &; and
• alt characters such as µ, £, Æ.

Change Your Password Often

One of the best defenses against someone stealing or cracking your password is to change your password at regular intervals. This makes it very hard for illegal use of a password to continue if it is compromised.

It is recommended that you change your password every 3 to 6 months and it is not recommended to recycle old passwords or use similar passwords.

A Final Word of Password Wisdom

I remember seeing a great phrase on the Mexican Hackers Emergency Response Team page, which went something like "Passwords are like underwear: don't share them, hide them under your keyboard, or hang them from your monitor. Above all, change them frequently".

How Can Linknet Help?

If you have trouble making passwords for your accounts, Linknet has provided a new password generator for our customers. http://www.linknet.com.au/linknet/password/. Feel free to use the generator for all of your password needs.