A Password How-To

Social networking is fun, right? We do plenty of it here at Mackey Advisors—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn (check us out—look for Mackey McNeill!), and this blog. With all of the excitement about social networking and the fun of exploring something new, a lot of people don’t think about is password security—for example, some workers at Twitter.

Today in the news is an article about Twitter being hacked for the third time since January. As if this isn’t worrisome enough, the hackers were able to gain access to Twitter company documents through guessing an employee’s personal Gmail password and then using that password to access other Google Aps that the employee uses at work—applications such as those used to create spreadsheets and presentations. Twitter is now considering taking legal action against other websites and blogs that are publishing leaked documents, but who knows what will happen with that.

For the average bear (err, person!) the take-away is this: amp up your password security! I know you’ve all heard this over and over again, but read below for some tips for strong passwords (courtesy of Microsoft).

The best password:
-Is long
-Has some combination of numbers, letters, and symbols
-Uses the entire keyboard
-Contain words and phrases particular to you but unknown to others

A 4-Step path to the perfect password:
1. Think of a sentence that you can remember, something like ‘My car is a green Toyta’.
2. If you can use a long phrase, then use your phrase. If you cannot use a phrase, create a password by taking the first letter of each word: ‘mciagt’.
3. Make the password more complex by making a mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters. For example: ‘mCiAGt’ or ‘mY CAr iS A GrEeN TOyoTA’.
4. Use symbols to look like letters , combine words, etc. to make your password more complex. For example: ‘mYKa R7sa9r#3 nT0y04a’ or ‘3Ki59T’.

When making a password, do NOT:
-Use sequences (5678) or repeated characters (yyyyyy)
-Use your login name
-Use common/dictionary words (bean, birdhouse, etc.)
-Use the same password for every account (hack one, hack ‘em all)
-Store your password online

Hope this helps you protect your personal and financial information!!

Resources:
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx