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Better passwords help keep your data safe
Published August 12, 2006
Here at The Kerrville Daily Times, we rely heavily on computers to write stories, edit pictures and design the newspapers.
Most businesses today rely on computers. In fact, most of us have even started to depend on some form of computer-like electronics in our daily lives.
Go to almost any grocery store and you’ll find a hopelessly lost husband — usually me — on a cell phone asking his wife which flavor of washing machine detergent he was sent to get. Our computers all have little electronic brains more complicated than the ones that send the Apollo space crafts to the moon, and thanks to ATMs, debt cards and direct deposit, I actually walk into the bank maybe once a month.
One could easily argue that all of this dependency on electronics and computers is a bad thing, but there is no denying that these machines have made our lives easier — at least until the power fails.
That’s what happened here last week, right in the middle of one of the busiest times of the busiest days of the week. We were working on the weekend edition when everything except the lights lost power.
Across the building you could hear people moaning over the work they had not yet saved being lost and the beep, beep, beep of the back-up power supplies kicking in. Those back-up batteries don’t last long and pretty soon we started seeing desktop computers going down, too.
That left us with only three working computers. Three laptops, including mine, that run on battery power and had needed software to design newspaper pages.
That solved half of the problem, but our network also went down with the power and we still needed to get wire news stories from the Associated Press.
Fortunately, these laptops have wireless Internet modems. We headed to Hastings Book store across the street where we used their free WiFi to get back to work while the electricians worked to restore the power back at the newspaper.
All of this got me to thinking about the security of using public wireless networks or computers. People do it all the time and think nothing of checking their e-mail accounts or logging into their bank account to check their balance.
A couple of years ago, I saw a commercial where a man was sitting at an Internet cafe, logged onto his bank account and using his debt card so he could show his buddy how his bank instantly tracks charges. I wonder if later he showed his buddy how the hacker sitting two tables over later emptied his bank account by using the password information from that public computer.
Using a public WiFi site or a public computer doesn’t mean that someone is going to steal all of your personal information, but you should always be cautious when you do and be aware of the dangers. Criminals can purchase keystroke logging devices for very little money, and they take only a few moments to install. These devices let them gather all the information typed on a computer from across the Internet.
Another piece of software that can be downloaded for free allows hackers to record information transmitted across a wireless network. If that information isn’t being encrypted, the criminal could have everything they need to get all of your personal data.
There are several steps anyone can take to help protect their personal information, and the first is a good password.
A strong password should be something hard to guess even by your closest friends. It should be long — some recommend 14 characters or long — and it should have a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
Some common password mistakes to avoid are using a login name or the same password for every account. Also, don’t use birthdates or anniversaries that can easily be found out.
Other things to avoid include using sequences of numbers or letters or names that go together such as using “river” as a password for the login “Guadalupe,” and never respond to e-mail requests for passwords. These usually are a scam.
Some things to do that can help keep your data safe include changing your password often. How often really depends on what type of information it is protecting. Bank passwords need to be changed every 30 to 60 days, but administrative passwords on home computers can be changed less often depending on the number of users.
You also can create a pass phrase, a sentence that you’ll use for a password. Some systems let you used a full sentence. With others, you’ll have to keep it short and leave out the spaces.
Use a different password for every login and make it something you can remember. You may want to write down passwords and keep them in a safe place.
And, if you ever have to give out your password, say to a friend or relative, make sure you change it as soon as they no longer need it. You wouldn’t want to be suspicious of that person if something comes up missing later.
There are some programs you can use on your home computer that will store all of your passwords and allow you to access them with one, master password. Another option is to use a USB jump drive.
If you want to check the strength of your passwords, Microsoft offers a safe password checker that will tell you if yours are too weak and easily cracked. You can try it out at www.microsoft.com/athome/security/privacy/password_checker.mspx.
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