In the past few weeks, I wrote two topics about internet security. One of which was about creating strong passwords to protect yourself from any malevolent events that the internet can bring to your regularly uneventful life.

Gone are the days of Alibaba, when the words “open sesame” will suffice to protect his loot. In this day and age, you need a really cryptic password that even you can hardly remember. The majority of computer users use an easy but weak passwords when they register for online services and other accounts. Most of us are guilty of this deed. I even do this most of the time. The only instance that I create a strong password is when the system forces me to do so. It is, however, not advisable these days. Weak passwords are like having no password at all.

Here’s why:

1. Hackers use sophisticated tools that guess passwords at the speed of light, and dictionary passwords are the easiest to crack. So, passwords like “awesomejoe123″ or lastname23 are the most vulnerable.
2. Ars Technica reported yesterday “that a 25-gpu cluster that cracks every standard Windows password of eight characters or less, in less than six hours. The machine, designed specifically for brute forcing algorithms can attack 45 other algorithms at speeds that were previously not in the realm of possibility for home usage.”
3. Brute forcing tries all possible password combinations starting with “aaa” or whatever the minimum required password is up to about eight characters tops. Why eight? Because afterwards, it takes years to get results if you use a home setup to crack the passwords.
4. Even Linkedin was not safe using this method as it (the brute-force app) was able to decipher 90% out of its 6.5 million accounts.

How To Create Strong Passwords that even our forgetful brain can recall

1. Create your passwords using more than 8 characters long. Brute forcing applications can easily guess passwords with 8 or less characters. They will have hard time cracking a password with 9 or more characters.
2. Avoid using dictionary words, names or sequential numbers in your passwords.
3. Use password manager like LastPass to create complicated passwords and be able to recall it when you need it.

If you have additional suggestions on how to increase the security of our online activities. Please do not hesitate to comment on this article.

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