Almost two years, Rahul Bansal wrote a post about how passwords are like underwear! The key message in it being that passwords should not be shared, should not be left lying around and you should change them often.
The comparison is surely funny but it can be quite serious if someone else does get hold of your password. Many people who have had their accounted hacked, the reason has been because someone has guessed their password, instead of someone actually breaking in with fancy software.
Most online security experts agree, that passwords should be long, have alpha-numeric characters along with special symbols if possible. But how can you truly build a password that is completely secure.
Password Meter is a nice online tool that shows how strong your password is across various parameters.
- Just type in the password you want to be tested in Password Meter.
- Then check for all the suggestions for complexities.
- The meter shows if you are using symbols, middle numbers, Lowercase and Uppercase letters along with length of password.
- Change your password with some additions to make it 100% strong.
This tool can be used to make your easy to remember password into a lot more complex. Most people might have a password which is their favorite book or their pet dog. This can be easily guessed but when you mix it with upper and lower case adding a symbol and add an easy to remember number to it, the combination is pretty much impossible to guess and the password would be long enough to be considered very secure.
Do use Password Meter to check the strength of your passwords and drop in your comments.
Link: Password Meter