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How to secure my password?
The importance of securing your password is growing as you entrust increasing amounts of personal information that can fall victim to data breaches and password leaks.
You risk losing your funds to a brute-force cracking attack if you use a weak password for your bank accounts. You might forget it if you create the password too randomly. A breach at one site exposes all your accounts if you use the same password everywhere. Yes, using the same password is terrible. If you know answer to your quesions such as How to secure my password? and How secure is my password? are crucial in addressing this problem.
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Using a password manager to create and store your passwords, makes all your accounts safe and secure. You don’t have to create a random password yourself since every password manager includes a password manager. However not all password managers are the same. It’s easy to choose the best one if you know how they work.
Every modern password manager allows you to generate unique, random, and unguessable passwords for yourself. Understanding the differences and learning how to use a random password generator can help you make an informed choice.
Password Generators—Random or Not?
Password managers use a pseudo-random algorithm. Pseudo-random algorithm starts with a number called a seed. If the seed gets a new non-traceable number and the new number becomes the new seed. This new number does not come again until all other number has become a seed. If the seed is a 32-bit integer, the algorithm goes through 4,294,967,295 numbers before a repeat.
This is enough for most of us who have password generation needs. Though it would difficult, a hacker still can break this if given the information and the seed.
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This kind of directed hacking is extraordinarily unlikely unless it’s a corporate espionage or cyberespionage.
Some password managers work to avoid even the remote possibility of such a focused attack. They obtain a random result, by incorporating your mouse movements and random characters into the random algorithm. AceBIT Password Depot, KeePass, and Steganos of some of the Password Managers that offer real-world randomization.
Most people don’t need real-world randomization, But if you need it, go for it.
Password Managers Reduce Randomness
Password generators do not just return random numbers. Instead, they return characters, using random numbers from available character sets. You should always enable the use of all character sets which are available.
The pool of available characters includes 10 digits, 26 letters each from lowercase and uppercase.
For simplicity, if you choose an eight-character password, for each character the possibilities are 808 ie. 80 eight times or 1,677,721,600,000,000, which is more than a quadrillion. That is very tough for any brute-force cracking attack.
Some password managers filter the output to avoid either only character or numerical passwords. If a hacker can figure out the filters it reduces the possibilities and makes cracking easier.
I’ll show you an extreme example. A collection of 80 characters has 40,960,000 possible for four-character passwords. Some password generators force the selection of at least one from each type of character that reduces the possibilities.
Still, there are 80 possibilities for the first character. If it’s an upper case letter, there is a 54 character pool for the second character. (80 minus the 26 uppercase characters). Further, suppose the second character is a lowercase letter. There are only digits and special characters remain for the third character. If the third character is punctuation, the last must be a digit, only 10 choices. In this case, 40 million possibilities reduce to 1,209,600.
Many websites force to have the character sets in the password. Shrink your password pool and set the password length high, to avoid meeting that requirement. The effect of forcing all character types becomes negligible when the password is long enough.
Some password managers using some methods to reduce the pool of possible passwords unnecessarily. RememBear specifies the characters count from each of the four-character sets. This will reduce the character pool. You can offset this problem by setting a higher password length.
LastPass and some others default to the character pairs like digit 0 and the letter O. You can turn off this option when you don’t have to remember the password. Pronounceable passwords are only important when you need to remember them. Otherwise, don’t tick that option. Applying this option rejects the possibility that the password generates deems to be unpronounceable.
How to secure my password?
Generate Long Passwords
As we have seen, password generators do not choose from the pool characters you selected. About 97 percent of possible four-character passwords never appear in a four-character password using all character sets. Having a long password is the solution for this.
The bigger the search space (pool of available passwords), the more difficult for brute force to attack.
You can find how long it would take to crack your password, GRC’s Interactive Brute Force Password “Search Space” Calculator. Even though this site promises you privacy I caution you to avoid actual passwords.
If the hacker has to guess online, it will take one day to cack a four-character password like e3F@. But in an offline scenario, cracking time is a fraction of a second where it can try guessing at high speed.
How to secure my password?
Create a memorable strong password
I have my favorite song that I’ll never forget. I suggest creating a mnemonic technique that transforms a line from a song or poem into a random-looking password.
Start by writing down the first letter of each syllable, using capital letters and lower letters alternatively.
Let’s try this line from Boney M’s Mary’s boy child song, “They see a bright new shining star, They hear a choir sing a song,”. From that, you’d get tSabNsS,tHaCsAs. You could never forget this password.
Cracker doesn’t know that this is not a random password. Gibson’s calculator finds that it would take 28.81 hundred trillion centuries to crack this password on an online attack scenario.
Make an Informed Password Manager Choice
Now you know the important factor in generating strong, random, and memorable passwords to make them long.
Some password generators reject passwords that contain ambiguous characters like small I and digit 1. Some discard passwords that contain all character sets and reject those with embedded dictionary words. These restrictions might limit the pool of possible passwords. But this limitation doesn’t matter when the length is high enough.
Of course, it is even possible that a hacker gets the ability to predict the pseudo-random password generated by the password manager. It is also possible that a shady password manager’s database can be breached and your password could end up with a hacker. If you are in real need of a password manager choose it wisely.
You need to lock your password manager with one secure master password, and you need to remember it yourself. Once you’ve started using a password manager, you have to remember the password for the password manager. That password should be impossible for someone to guess and crack.
No matter where your vulnerability lies, a password manager will step in and secure the problem to secure your password. You may be having trouble remembering your passwords, aren’t good at creating unique ones, or simply struggle to keep track of all the passwords your online life demands. A good password manager will centralize all these ideas.
Best Bassword Managers
1Password and Norton Password Manager are the very best I’ve tested and they secure passwords as expected. No password manager is perfect. But these are as secure as they still very easy to use. Read my full review on 1Password.
How to secure my password – EndNote
The answer to the question of how secure is my password is not straightforward. Obviously, creating random, memorable, strong, and long password is the solution to your question. But I always recommend using a password manager which will secure your passwords whatever vulnerability lies.
Using a password manager is an effortless way to secure your online life and build the defense between your valuable information and hackers. A password manager is an intelligent and effortless way to secure your online life and strengthen the first defense between bad actors and your valuable information.
I am sure that you have got the aswer for your question, How to secure my password?