Recently from ITCS
- First, make up a sentence you can remember. For example: My dog, Sylvia, has a birthday January 14.
- Next, take the first letter of each word and…
- Make 1-2 letters upper case
- Make at least one letter a number
- Make at least one letter a special character such as, ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) = +
- The new passphrase: Md$habJ1 (don’t use this one!).
Hacker programs crack your passphrase by trying every word in the dictionary and other tricks. Here are a few things to avoid:
- Never use personal information to create a passphrase.
- Never use the word, password, as your passphrase. This includes using numbers or special characters to make the word look different.
- Never use easily-obtained, personal information such as license plate numbers, telephone numbers, etc., as part of your passphrase.
- Never use any word contained in a dictionary, spelling list or other word list in any language.
- Never use transformations such as reversing the spelling, changing upper case to lower case or using all caps.
- Never select a passphrase that is common to everyone (Go@Pirates!).
For more information on passphrase security, please visit www.ecu.edu/itcs/ithelpdesk/passphrase.cfm.