Using Strong Passwords

Passwords are the keys (or partial keys, if you use MFA) to so much of our private and personal information. For this reason, having a strong password is important. Selecting long passwords that are diverse in characters makes them much harder to crack or to guess. 

Here are some pointers for choosing good passwords:

• Make them long and complex:  Longer passwords with various characters have more entropy than shorter, simpler passwords. 
• Make them easy to remember: Consider a sentence, punctuation and capitalization included. For greater strength, also consider adding a number.
• Length is better than complexity:  Ideally, a password would contain a varied amount of characters and be long.  If you must choose, however, opt for a longer password rather than an overly-complex one. You will be more likely to remember it!  Aim for 14 characters or more.
• Use a different password for each site:  Re-using passwords decreases your security! If someone gets hold of your password from one account, they are very likely to try that password on all of your other accounts.

Please see this Infographic for some useful and interesting password-related facts.

Using Password Managers

Password Managers are applications, many times available for free, that help you save your passwords in one secure place for later reference.  Many of them also offer random, secure password generation and the ability to securely auto-fill websites and applications.  This helps you to have unique, complex passwords for each of your sites and resources without having to memorize them all.

Some examples of password managers are:

• Lastpass
• Bitwarden
• Dashlane
• 1Password
• Keepass
• Macpass
• Keeper Security

Please ensure you enable MFA and choose a very strong master password on your password manager.