Computer Security:Passwords- Is

yours a good one?

By: Mike Barker

Preface

● With the growth of the Internet, computer and network security has become more important than ever.

● Increasingly, we hear of malicious individuals breaking into corporate and government computer systems around the world

● The media calls these people hackers

Preface

● That description is not entirely accurate

● Within the subculture of computer hobbyists and software enthusiasts, the term hacker usually refers to a particular kind of programmer

● A cracker, on the other hand, is someone who breaks into computers, often to do something malicious

Hacker versus Cracker

● In short, a hacker is someone who programs creatively and usually for pure amusement.

● The correct term for someone who breaks into computer systems is a cracker

Hacker versus Cracker

● In some cases, the damage may be as little as an altered Web page, the Internet equivalent of graffiti

● In other cases, the cracker may wipe out your entire hard drive to cover his or her tracks

● Fortunately, there are ways to protect yourself.

Password Protection

● Password are the most fundamental security tool of any modern operating system and, consequently, the most commonly attacked security feature

● It is natural to want to choose a password that is easy to remember, but very often this means choosing a password that is also easy to guess

● Crackers know that on any system with more than a few users, at least one person is likely to have an easily guessed password

Password Protection

● Here are some things to avoid when choosing a password:– Do not use any variation of your login name

or your full name. Even if you use varied case, append or prepend numbers or punctuation, or type it backwards, this will still be an easily guessed password

– Do not use a dictionary word, even if you add numbers or punctuation to it

Password Protection

● Here are …– Do not use proper names of any kind

– Do not use any contiguous line of letters or numbers on the keyboard (such as “qwerty” or “asdfg”)

Choosing good password

● A good way to choose a strong password is to take the first letter from each word of an easily remembered sentence

● The password can be made even better by adding numbers, punctuation, and varied case

● The sentence you choose should have meaning only to you, and should not be publicly available (choosing a sentence on your personal Web page is a bad idea)

Choosing good password

● Ideas for good password

– Mrci7yo! : My rusty car is 7 years old!

– 2emBplib : 2 elephants make BAD pets, 1 is better

– ItMc?Gib : Is that My coat? Give it back

● As you can see, I even placed emphasis on particular words and used that to remember capitalization of certain letters

● The password look like gibberish, but are actually rather easy to remember

Changing password periodically

● Even really good passwords can be broken if a cracker has enough time to work at it

● That is why periodically changing your password is an extremely good idea

● This way, by the time a cracker does arrive at the correct password, it will already be changed to something different

THANK YOU

Any Questions?

References- Wikepedia.com

Personal Experiences