Password Security Tips

Working backstage with AV crews, we don't normally listen to presenter's content too closely. We just concentrate on the technical side of things to make sure all is working as it should be and technically running smoothly.

Last week I was working at a conference for a financial institution. On this occasion a guest speaker was on stage that really caught our attention. The man speaking was a detective from the MET Police and specialised in cyber/ internet crime. He talked mostly about online passwords. Passwords for anything from banking to social media and why they need to be more secure.

Hackers want your money.

There are thousands of hackers out there who are desperate to get their hands on your money. They will go to great lengths to get it by trying to hack into accounts and use bribery or theft to take what is yours. One of many thing we learned was a quarter of all hacked online accounts have a password like QWERTY or 123456. These are passwords that require no technology but just random guess work. Something else we learned is that if your password is made of one or two words, hacking software can take between 12-42 seconds to guess it.

How do I make a super strong password?

The detective then went to show us how to make amazing passwords. Amazingly, he assured us that this method would take a hacker's computer 4 times the known length of the universe to discover. I have no idea how many millions of years that could be. Anyway, here's a method.

Let's say your existing password is:

• england1966 Add two more words (any) so it is now...
• englandchairear1966 Now capitalise each word for extra security...
• EnglandChairEar1966 Now split the number, putting 2 at the front, 2 at the back...
• 19EnglandChairEar66 Now change one of those 'E's to a '3' so it's like a backward 'E'. You can do this with other letters like changing an 's' to a '5'...
• 19EnglandChair3ar66 Now add some punctuation
• 19EnglandChair3ar66!!

There, an amazing password that will hopefully keep the hackers away.

Adding a prefix or suffix to make it universal

The beauty of this password is that you can use it for all your passwords so you only need to remember one. However, there's one small adjustment you need to do make for each of your accounts. Say for example, you use the above password for Facebook, just add fa to that password to the begininng (prefix) or at the end (suffix). If you use it for Twitter, just add tw at the beginning or end. They'll look something like this...

• For Facebook fa19EnglandChair3ar66!! For Twitter tw19EnglandChair3ar66!!

So although all your passwords are different, you just need to remember the main one then add a prefix. This is useful because if one is ever discovered, it won't allow hackers into any other of your accounts.

So that's how to stay safer online folks!