In my infinite curiosity about networking and security as it relates to computers and personal information I recently came across a news article on yahoo about passwords and how common passwords are still used even though we see news events and articles nearly every day about some institution or government system getting broken into. Basically this article talks about some of the most common passwords that are used to access very personal information such as banking, financial or personal information.

The (above) article points out the top used passwords used by the average consumer at only one site whose database of over thirty million users, which included user names and passwords, that was hacked and stolen. It\'s amazing, but the top five passwords listed were all as simple as \"123456, 12345, 123456789, password, and iloveyou\". The list is a perfect example of how easy it is to create a password that is easy to remember, yet easy to crack for just about anyone who knows how to use a computer.

To keep this simple, lets go over a couple of easy to remember suggestions when selecting a password. These are suggestions that are generally followed by network security professionals and engineers who design the security systems at major financial institutions and government facilities.

The first suggestion is to have a password at least six characters long. While I agree with this to a point, I personally believe your password should be at least eight characters long. Characters include symbols, numbers and spaces, lower case and upper case letters.

I have a friend that takes this idea to the extreme with his password being a completely random sixteen characters that only he could remember. His password does seem to be a perfect combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and symbols with nothing sequential. He told me the password and I went glassy eyed after just the first few characters, and yet was amazed that he could remember such a complex password.

Moving onto the suggestions, keep your password easy enough to remember, and yet complex enough for someone to not be able to just guess if somehow they gain access to your user name. An example of this would be to (if you must) use a child\'s date of birth with some minor changes. A bad password in this case is 12374 (we\'ll say this is my son\'s birth day). A better password for this type of idea would be \"One/2thr33/74\". While this keeps the concept of the date of birth in place, it makes it much more difficult to just guess or hack as there are multiple letters, numbers and even a symbol in the password.

On a side note, another way to remember your password, or if you use multiple passwords like most of the corporate world (I personally have at least 9 passwords that I have to remember), try to keep the passwords and user names within the same \"family\". An example of this \"family\" concept is to use the first letter of your first name and full last name as your user name. ie: jsmith or jsmi32 or smithj (randomize it to make it easy for different applications if you must). The same goes for the passwords that you choose. Examples of good passwords within the same \"family\" would be sporting teams or things associated with them. ie: d3tro1Tt1g3rs, or T1g3rs, or even D3trO1TPi$t0nS. You can use your imagination and make your password anything you want of course.

If you must write your password down, put it in a secure location. Don\'t tape it or sticky it to your monitor, the bottom of your keyboard or even to the underside of your desk. If you carry a planner, don\'t keep your password in your planner or even in your wallet as these can be lost and with a user name and password that puts your security at risk. A good idea is to keep your password information in a safe, lockbox or a locked file cabinet where it\'s difficult to access.

Don\'t tell anyone your user name (login ID) or password. Many people make the mistake of \"trusting\" a co-worker or colleague, or even a friend. This mistake can lead to security breaches, loss of finances or other personal information.

That\'s it for today, everyone. Remember to keep your passwords secure, complex and easy to remember as your personal data falling into the wrong hands can only cause all sorts of headaches.