How to Pick a Genuinely Secure Password

Security expert Bruce Schneier is a security expert, having written influential books on computer security and cryptography. Does that mean he has tips on how to create passwords that are genuinely secure?

In a recent Yahoo tech article, columnist Christopher Null says Schneier has great tips on how to create a secure password that’s also easy to remember. Schneier is such an expert, Null says, when “Bruce says here’s how to create a secure password (and how he creates his own passwords), I listen.”

Before choosing a password, Schneier says it’s important to find out how hackers can crack passwords in the first place. It’s done primarily “through brute force ‘dictionary’ attacks, where software tries to guess a password by running through a series of common phrases or words in various combinations,” Null writes.

The trick, Schneier and Null say, is to use a ‘root’ that is not common and to put your ‘appendage’ (or two of them) in an unusual place: Either in the middle of the root or at both the beginning and the end.

Schneier’s example, Null says, “is to use a word that you can pronounce but which is spelled ‘wrong’: armwar or pitchsure or baysball are all examples. Then attach your appendage(s): arm9!9war or 1066pitchsure6601 or bay1776sball. It shouldn’t take much effort to commit any of these to memory,” Null adds.

To read the full article, click here: http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/13353/how-to-pick-a-genuinely-secure-password