What makes a password strong?

Passwords can be the weakest link in your security scheme. Password cracking software uses one of three approaches: intelligent guessing, dictionary attacks, and automation that tries every possible combination of characters. Given enough time, the automated method can crack any password. However, it still can take many months and a lot of computer power to crack a strong password. Be sure your password is strong.

Password must:

• Be at least 6 characters in length. The longer your password is, the harder it is to crack.
• Contains different characters (no repeats).
• Look like a sequence of random letters and numbers.
• Be easy to remember but hard to guess.
• Use a varied set of characters, including lowercase and uppercase letters, numerals, and symbols (like spaces, dots, colons, quote marks, dollar signs).
• Be changed immediately if compromised.

Password must not:

• Include your name, e-mail address or the word "password".
• Use any actual word or name in any language.
• Use numbers in place of similar letters like S411y ("Sally").
• Use consecutive letters or numbers like "abcdefg","234567".
• Use adjacent keys on the keyboard like "qwerty".
• Include repeating sequences like "xyzxyz".

Some examples of bad passwords are:
mypasswo - Obviously plain-text based ("my password")
nicole3 - Name-based
lkjlkj - Repeating sequence
S411y - Based on the word Sally with common letter/number substitution

Inventing a password:

Make up a sentence that's meaningful to you. Then use the first letter of each word as a letter in your password; if you wish, add additional characters to make it more difficult to guess.

- Start with the phrase such as Orange elephants invade Alaska; film at eleven.
- Take the first letter of each word as your password: OeiAfae (This is an acceptable password; it follows the rules but is hard for someone to guess since it's essentially a random string of characters.)
- To make the password even harder to guess, add punctuation, numbers, and other non-alphanumeric symbols: OeiA;f@11

How can I store my password?

You should be careful about where you save your password. We recommend that you memorize your password, not write it down. If you are not sure you can remember it, write down a hint that will remind you of the password. Please note that the hint must not allow to guess the password. If you absolutely must write the password down to avoid forgetting it, don't identify it and keep it with you at all times.

How to remember a password?

If you're concerned about remembering a long password, don't be. Even a long password made up of different types of characters can be easy to remember. You can make a password based on a famous phrase and a few special characters and numbers.

For example, let's take our domain name folder-password-expert.com and numbers 1234. We put a number before each letter, capitalize the first and the last letter of each word and get "1FoldeR2PassworD3ExperT.4com". This password is 28 characters long and is not easy to guess.

If you forget your password, you will not be able to decrypt your data. Be sure to make a backup copy of your password and store it in a safe place or use the Hint option of Folder Password Expert. For example, the hint for the password "1FoldeR2PassworD3ExperT.4com" can be "security and www". It does not allow other people to guess the password but helps you remember it.

Click Here to Change your Chi-town.com Password