I was talking to a client earlier today, whilst dealing with a technical support enquiry and she said she used the same password for all her websites! You should not do this, but perhaps even more importantantly highlighted that the business did not have a password policy in place and therefore was safe to come to teh conclusion� that they are not cycber aware!

I took the time to explain a few simple ways to ensure taht (a) your passwords are secure and (b) ways to remember them. The clinet said that they would ensure everyone in their office would review their password before the close of play today.

Secure passwords

Believe it or not “password” is still the most popular password used today! (see http://www.passwordrandom.com/most-popular-passwords). Secure passwords should contain:

Numbers Upper case letters Lower case letters Symbols

There are some great tools like http://passwordsgenerator.net/ whish can create strong passwords.

Remembering passwords

There are a number of approaches, here are just a few:

Use the website address or name with a unique / strong suffix, e.g. G00gl3Ma1l[unique key] for Google Mail. Use a subject that you know well and base passwords on it, e.g. Formula 1 drives, Football payers. Use a different strategy for personal and work passwords. Use a password that is associated with a phrase, e.g. work password could be W9t5365day! (Working 9till 5365days aYear!) where you use the fist number of letter of each word.

We used to create licence numebers based on head office addresses, so a licence number for Ayrmer Software would be ASSro12 (see below) using a set algorithm that used letters and numbers from each line of the address.

Ayrmer Software
2 – 3 Station Yard
Ashburton
Devon TQ13 7EF

We obvioulsy don’t use any of the above approaches for our passwords at Ayrmer Software, but if you would like to know more please contact our offices to discuss further.