Educational Equity - Guidelines for Selecting Secure Passwords
Rationale
The object when choosing a password is to make it as difficult as possible for a cracker to make educated guesses about what you've chosen. This leaves him or her no alternative but a brute-force search, trying every possible combination of letters, numbers, and punctuation. A search of this sort, even conducted on a machine that could try one million passwords per second (most machines can try less than one hundred per second), would require, on the average, over one hundred years to complete.
What Not to Use
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Don't use your login name in any form (as-is, reversed, capitalized, doubled, etc.).
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Don't use your first or last name in any form.
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Don't use use your spouse's or child's name.
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Don't use other information easily obtained about you. This includes license plate numbers, telephone numbers, social security numbers, the brand of your automobile, the name of the street you live on, etc.
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Don't use a password of all digits, or all the same letter. This significantly decreases the search time for a cracker.
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Don't use a word contained in (English or foreign language) dictionaries, spelling lists, or other lists of words.
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Don't use a password shorter than six characters.
What to Use
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Do use a password with mixed-case alphabetics.
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Do use a password with nonalphabetic characters, e.g., digits or punctuation.
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Do use a password that is easy to remember, so you don't have to write it down.
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Do use a password that you can type quickly, without having to look at the keyboard. This makes it harder for someone to steal your password by watching over your shoulder.
NOTE: You are required to change your network password at least every 90 days. The password must be at least six characters in length and must contain three of the following four types of characters: upper-case letters, lower-case letters, non-alphabetics, numbers.
Methods to Choose Secure and Easy to Remember Passwords
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Choose a line or two from a song or poem, and use the first letter of each word. For example, "In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn a stately pleasure dome decree" becomes "IXdKKaspdd."
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Alternate between one consonant and one or two vowels, up to eight characters. This provides nonsense words that are usually pronounceable, and thus easily remembered. Examples include "routboo," "quadpop," and so on.
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Choose two short words and concatenate them together with a punctation character between them. For example: "dog;rain," "book+mug," "kid?goat."
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Use your telephone dial as a guide to translate letters into numbers. For example: "telephone" can become "tele74one."
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Consider using passphrases, but remember not to include spaces. For example: "All for one and one for all" becomes "One4AllandOne4All." Passphrases are often easier to remember than passwords. Please be aware that some services cannot accommodate lengthy passwords/passphrases. AIS, for example, limits entries to eight characters.
Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Equity
314 Old Main, University Park, PA 16802
Phone: (814) 865-5906 - Fax: (814) 865-3997
http://www.equity.psu.edu
Copyright 2005-2007 OVPEE
Web page last modified
May 30, 2008
by Web Coordinator.