Good Passwords can be somewhat of a hassle to remember, but given the state of the world wide web today they are a very necessary part of website security. When security pertains to email, you may be surprised to know that a "hacker" can not only get acess to anything you may send or receive if he "cracks" your password, but he or she can access areas of the website's "backend" that can disable the site or send out spam-- using your name-- and potentially get the ERC's whole website blacklisted as a spam emitter. That would effectively disable our entire email system... serious stuff.

Passwords such as "HotStuff1988" or "AngelLady", may seem cool, but they are the easiest of all to "crack" with simple password-cracking software available freely on the web. The trick to having a good password is to never use a word that is in the dictionary! This includes foreign language dictionaries, by the way. Most password cracking software used by hackers can operate under a dozen or more languages, and crack a password like the two examples above in less than 2 seconds.

I wanted to point out the above because our password strength meter below is not designed to detect whether the password you enter is one like the two bad examples above, simply because the script was written for use in computer science classes where the students know better than to use regular words in a password. If you type in "HotStuff1988" or the like, you may get a false reading of "Secure"... so it's important to keep this in mind.

Another good reason to use a secure password is that the server that the ERC website resides on is very securely monitored for hack attempts. It uses state of the art automatic software to inform the webmaster of any hacking or spam attempts, and which user's password may have been cracked. And it is my job to inform the Director if your password gets cracked.

I'm not trying to worry or intimidate anyone at all--- but "security" also relates to "anonymity", and if even one person who seeks the ERC's help through email or other means on the website has their anonymity compromised, that's one person too many. Please use secure passwords.

So, what is a secure password? Well here are a few examples to give you an idea:

Not Good: Words like these 3 can be cracked in less than a second!
• KoolDude
• LadyBird
• JoeDoe1975

Good: These might take a few minutes.
• bEUyK9
• p33Abq
• u9xvRy8

Better: These would take enough time that the ERC website would easily detect and block the hack attempt
• v3B*pL9a
• Pjk*Ewh5
• u7$yTk7

Best: A Cray supercomputer might, but likely could not crack this type.
• sj[6LuF~/[^4i
• e)gH$yE[v3^i
• yGb65_/h[o@s

Nonsensical and hard to remember stuff, huh? Well, that is exactly what makes them good passwords. Password-cracking software uses computer algorithms and data for many languages to discover word or phrase patterns to crack your password. The more illogical and random the sequence of letters used, the better the password. You can copy/paste them from your text editor, or use a password manager so you don't have to memorize them.

Now that you are a pro at making up passwords, try out your new password using the tool below:

Password Strength Meter

Password:


Password Strength:

Is your password secure? Then you're good to go!

Content Updated on Monday, 11~14~2011

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