We have been told for years that our passwords for emails, online banking, shopping etc. need to be long, contain capitals, numbers, and special characters.
These can be a nightmare to remember, and many people end up using the same one for everything or just replacing letters with special characters. Such as C0mput3r or some other word that is recognisable.
It is possible to search the internet and find lists of many of the permutations. Cyber thieves use these within programs to attack sites such as Banks, Email hosting companies etc. to see if anyone’s account cracks. Of course, they don’t have every permutation but then they don’t need to. They only have to guess correctly once.
The alternative is to use even stronger more random passwords and have different ones for all accounts. But to do this you need a Password manager (1Password etc). which a lot of people can’t be bothered to implement.
According to the Government site of National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) the most effective password is made up of 3 random words (NCSC lifts lid on three random words password logic). By using 3 random words the password usually ends up being fairly long but with careful choice they can be strong and easier to remember;
- DogBonioMess
- HouseKidsToys
- SchoolLovedDrama
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