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This little "blond" joke made me laugh ... but the more I thought about it, I realized that having a good password strategy isn't .  The Smart Blond Joke:

During a recent password audit, it was found that a blond was using the following password:

"MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento"

When asked why she had such a long password, she said she was told that it had to be at least eight characters long and include at least one capital.

And yet, this is a great password, it has a strategy on how it was created.

Nobody would guess it, but this smart blond would remember it. Her strategy was Disney Characters and the capitol of a state. If she wanted to change it she could find more Disney characters, and change the state. Voila. A new password, easy to remember.

Passwords are very important – and obviously using the same one all the time, or writing them down is a problem. NEVER use your “common” password for banking. And if someone is doing an audit, or asks for your password, don't give it to them. If you have to give it to them, change it as soon as they are done doing what they have to do with it.

Some great tips for making a kick butt password:

Use letter substitution

•   0 can be used for O (or D)
•   1 can be used for I (or L)
•   2 can be used for Z (or R and Ä)
•   3 can be used for E
•   4 can be used for A
•   5 can be used for S
•   6 can be used for G (or B)
•   7 can be used for T (or L)
•   8 can be used for B
•   9 can be used for P (or G and Q)

Use first letters of a phrase you can remember – Like I love Jamoca Almond Fudge ice cream. If I turned this into a password, it would be Iljafic –

Now add caps and substitute numbers

1Ljafic

Make sure you avoid sequences

If you have to change your password every month, then pick something you love with some numbers you can remember (like zip code of neighboring cities) If you love cars for example you can do

• Lamborgini92660
• Tesla92660
• Mustang92660
• Porche92660
• Ferrari92660
• Ford92660
• Chevy92660
• Ram92660

And since those are too long, you might shorten, and throw in letter substitutions

• 7aM92660 is Lam92660 – 98% score
• T3292660 is Tes92660 – 77% score
• Mu292660 is Mus92660 – 97% score
• P0r92660 is Por92660 – 100% score

If you want to check your password strength, go here http://www.passwordmeter.com

You get the idea. These types of passwords are very hard for hackers or hacking machines to break.

Tanis
© 2011