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Hints and Tips

Choosing a Secure Password

You will use a lot of different passwords when on the Internet. A guide to all of these has been written. These passwords should be changed regularly, for increased security. When changing  your password, you should select a password that will be very difficult to guess. The following points should help you when choosing your new password. This is taken from RFC 1244:

• DON'T use your login name in any form (as-is, reversed, capitalised, doubled, etc.)
• DON'T use your first, middle, or last name in any form. - DON'T use your spouse's or child's name.
• DON'T use other information easily obtained about you. This includes car registration numbers, telephone numbers, tax numbers, the make of your car, the name of the street you live in, etc..
• DON'T use a password of all digits, or all the same letter.
• DON'T use a word contained in English or foreign language dictionaries, spelling lists, or other lists of words.
• DON'T use a password shorter than six characters.
• DO use a password with mixed-case alphabetic.
• DO use a password with non-alphabetic characters (digits or punctuation).
• DO use a password that is easy to remember, so you don't have to write it down.
• DO use a password that you can type quickly, without having to look at the keyboard.

Examples of Bad Passwords:

johnd, dnhoj, johndjohnd, JOHND, ABC123D, The Close, 0123456789, xxxxxx, mouse, truck, lorry, me, you

Examples of Good Passwords:

w@Ter55h00t, Si11yb0y

Methods of selecting a password which adheres to these guidelines include:

• Choose a line or two from a song or poem, and use the first letter of each word.
• Alternate between one consonant and one or two vowels, up to seven or eight characters. This provides nonsense words which are usually pronounceable, and thus easily remembered.
• Choose two short words and concatenate them together with a punctuation character between them.

Passwords should be changed periodically, usually every three to six months. This ensures that an intruder who has guessed a password will eventually lose access, as well as invalidating any list of passwords he/she may have obtained.

More Information: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/password.mspx