Passwords Are A Piece Of Cake -- For CybercrooksWhat really makes a password difficult -- or easy -- for someone else to figure out? A computer cracker or identity thief will never know the name of your favorite great-aunt's cousin's dog -- so that's a good password, right?
"Sadly, that's not true," said Ripley. "Modern-day bad guys don't bother trying to guess your password themselves; they have computers do it for them."
Using special programs and huge lists of words, these cybercrooks try millions of different words -- long words, short words and foreign words. They can try every word in every dictionary, in every language on Earth; every dog's and cat's and goldfish's name imaginable. They try all those words with dIffErenT cApITaLiZation, and all kinds of oth3r vArati0ns! They'll keep guessing for hours, or even days -- the program doing the guessing never gets tired or bored.
SourceRead the whole article to find out how to create a more secure password.
