Create strong passwords

I found this article on Microsoft Online Safety and wanted to share it with those who are interested in this topic.

Strong passwords are important protections to help you have safer online transactions.

Keys to password strength: length and complexity

An ideal password is long and has letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers.

• Whenever possible, use at least 14 characters or more.
• The greater the variety of characters in your password, the better.
• Use the entire keyboard, not just the letters and characters you use or see most often.

Create a strong password you can remember

There are many ways to create a long, complex password. Here is one way that may make remembering it easier:

What to do Suggestion Example Start with a sentence or two (about 10 words total). Think of something meaningful to you. Long and complex passwords are safest. I keep mine secret. (10 words) Turn your sentences into a row of letters. Use the first letter of each word. lacpasikms (10 characters) Add complexity. Make only the letters in the first half of the alphabet uppercase. lACpAsIKMs (10 characters) Add length with numbers. Put two numbers that are meaningful to you between the two sentences. lACpAs56IKMs (12 characters) Add length with punctuation. Put a punctuation mark at the beginning. ?lACpAs56IKMs (13 characters) Add length with symbols. Put a symbol at the end. ?lACpAs56IKMs" (14 characters)

Test your password with a password checker

A password checker evaluates your password's strength automatically. Try our secure password checker.

Protect your passwords from prying eyes

• The easiest way to "remember" passwords is to write them down.
  It is okay to write passwords down, but keep them secure. See 5 tips to keep your passwords secret.

Common password pitfalls to avoid

Cyber criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly decipher passwords.

Avoid creating passwords using:

• Dictionary words in any language.
  Words in all languages are vulnerable.
• Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.
  Words in all languages are vulnerable.
• Sequences or repeated characters.
  Examples: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).
• Personal information.
  Your name, birthday, driver's license, passport number, or similar information.

5 Tips to help keep your Passwords Secret

Form Microsoft Online Safety:

Treat your passwords with as much care as you treat the information that they protect.

Use strong passwords to log on to your computer and to any site where you enter your credit card number, or any financial or personal information—including social networking sites.

1. Never provide your password over e-mail or in response to an e-mail request.
   • Internet "phishing" scams use fraudulent e-mail messages to entice you to reveal your user names and passwords, steal your identity, and more. Learn more about phishing scams and how to deal with online fraud.
2. Do not type passwords on computers that you do not control
   • Computers such as those in Internet cafes, computer labs, kiosk systems, conferences, and airport lounges should be considered unsafe for any personal use other than anonymous Internet browsing.
   • Cyber criminals can purchase keystroke logging devices which gather information typed on a computer, including passwords.
3. Don't reveal passwords to others
   • Keep your passwords hidden from friends or family members (especially children) who could pass them on to other, less trustworthy individuals.
4. Protect any recorded passwords
   • Don't store passwords on a file in your computer, because criminals will look there first.
   • Keep your record of the passwords you use in a safe, secure place.
5. Use more than one password
   • Use different passwords for different Web sites and services.

PS Tools

For Systems Administrators and IT Helpdesks, PSTools are great utilities they can make use of to locally or remotely manage their systems (desktops and servers).

Here are tools included in the PsTools suite, which are downloadable as a package. The PsTools suite can be downloaded Here (PSTOOLS Suite)

(Note: Click on each tool to see how it is used)

• PsExec - execute processes remotely
• PsFile - shows files opened remotely
• PsGetSid - display the SID of a computer or a user
• PsInfo - list information about a system
• PsKill - kill processes by name or process ID
• PsList - list detailed information about processes
• PsLoggedOn - see who's logged on locally and via resource sharing (full source is included)
• PsLogList - dump event log records
• PsPasswd - changes account passwords
• PsService - view and control services
• PsShutdown - shuts down and optionally reboots a computer
• PsSuspend - suspends processes
• PsUptime - shows you how long a system has been running since its last reboot (PsUptime's functionality has been incorporated into PsInfo)

The PsTools download package includes an HTML help file with complete usage information for all the tools.

Switching User in Mac OS X

In Mac OS X, there feature called Fast User Switching allows you to simultaneously log into two or more OS X accounts on one computer, and switch quickly between them. Unlike Windows Vista or Windows 7, this feature is not turned on by default on Mac OS X.

Here are the steps enable Fast User Switching:

1. From the Apple menu, select System Preferences... .
2. In System Preferences, from the View menu, select Accounts
3. If the padlock in the bottom left-hand corner of the window is closed, click it and authenticate with an administrator account.
4. On the bottom left side of the window, click Login Options.
5. On the right side of the window, check Show fast user switching menu as: (Mac OS X 10.6) or Enable fast user switching (Mac OS X 10.5 and earlier). If a sheet then drops down, click OK. Choose Name, Short name, or Icon to determine how the user switching icon appears in the menu bar.
6. To log into a different account, click the fast user switching icon in the menu bar, and from the pull-down menu that appears, select the account you wish to log into.
7. When prompted, provide the password for the account. It may take a moment for the login process to complete. After this, the screen will rotate and the other account will become dominant.

The drawback of this feature is that each user logged into a system eats up memory and the more applications open for each user, the more likely the system will swap stuff into virtual memory and system performance will suffer.