Most people store many of their personal and professional data on their PCs. Although people use passwords, quite often it is possible for hackers decipher the password and get in to the systems with considerable time and effort. Because most people use things that are easy to remember like the name of some important people in their lives or some significant dates as password. If you use any such information as your password, it is quite easy for anyone who has some idea about your personal life to guess the password and access your system. You can employ measures like Specops password policy or you can protect your data by creating strong passwords. Here are a few tips that will help you make strong passwords.

Make the passwords long

Most people, who do not have Specops password policy, tend to have short passwords because they are quite easy to remember. It is recommended that your password should have eight characters at least. Although this is the recommended length, you can make your password longer to make it stronger. Even the most brilliant hackers with the most sophisticated programs may find it almost impossible to crack in to your PC if you use sufficiently long passwords.

Do not have passwords with your personal information

Do not use any of your personal information like your surname, name of your spouse, social security number, phone number, birth date, or address as password. Try to come up with a password that is quite easy for you to remember, but virtually impossible for other people to guess.

Change the password often

It is a good idea to change your password often to protect your data. Even if you change the password frequently you need to use long password which are hard for people and programs to crack open.

The techniques employed to steal passwords

If you have a fair idea about the various techniques employed to steal the passwords you will be careful when designing the password. One of the common tools used to steal passwords is \’guessing\’. There are several programs designed to guess the password, basing on the information about the user found online, like names of significant people, birthdates, license plate numbers etc. Another common tool is \’dictionary-based attacks\’. There are programs that will run all the words in the dictionary against user name to find out the password.

These are also programs which tries every combination of keys against the user name. This is known as \’brute force attack\’. You can defend this attack by making your password long and complex by using special characters, numbers, punctuation marks and lower and upper case letters. Do not ever use alphabets or numbers in chronological order as it is quite easy for programs to crack open such passwords.

If you have a strong password it is virtually impossible for anyone to steal your data. Although employing policies like Specops password policy to protect your data is a good idea, with a little deliberation and effort you can come up with a smart password that does not contain any of your personal or professional information.

To get more information about Specops Password Policy and to know more on OS Deployment, contact the experts at Specops Software.

To get more information about http://www.specopssoft.com/products/specops-password-policy Specops Password Policy and to know more on http://www.specopssoft.com/solutions/os-deployment OS Deployment, contact the experts at Specops Software.

Author Bio: To get more information about Specops Password Policy and to know more on OS Deployment, contact the experts at Specops Software.

Category: Computers and Technology
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