Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/832512
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 4 JUNE 2017 42 Information Technology As ICT technologies evolve, hackers are finding new ways to crack the most com- plex of passwords. An eight character "raw" password can be cracked within a few sec- onds by using a special software. When we say "raw", we mean that the password is either a word derived from a dictionary or a date of birth or a name. This makes it easy for the perpetrators to hack into a person's account and steal or modify any personal information in it. Users tend to use simple passwords be- cause they are afraid that they might for- get them. For this reason, they use names, dates of birth, a mixture of both or even words from the dictionary. However, there are simple ways in which users can use complex or "strong" passwords or pass- phrases that can easily be remembered and at the same time, offer more security to the respective account. A "Strong" password cannot be eas- ily hacked or guessed. As a rule of thumb, passwords should be at least eight char- acters long, do not contain words from the dictionary, and should consist of both lower and uppercase characters, numbers and symbols. Passwords should never be written down or shared. If the user has a problem in remem- bering all the different passwords, there are free third party applications which can be used as a protective vault in which to hold passwords of different accounts. These are called Password Managers and they only require a Master Password to ac- cess all your passwords. It is also important not to use the same password for different accounts, especially if these are office or personal accounts. Now, the ultimate question to ask is how to remember the passwords? Let's take a simple example of how a per- son can make sure to remember the pass- word or passphrase easily. Take for exam- ple the phrase, "Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water" and extract the first character of each word. The result would be "JaJwuthtfapow". This can be easily used as a password, having lower and uppercase characters. However, let's make it a bit stronger. We can include numbers or symbols in such a way that it looks like this - JaJwuth2f@p0w. In this way, the password is composed of lower and upper case characters, numbers and a symbol. This is how a "Strong" pass- word or passphrase should be (because it was created from a phrase). In conclusion, it is important to keep note of the following tips: • Never use the same password for personal and office/system accounts • Create a strong password that is easy to remember and not shorter than eight characters long • Use a combination of numbers, symbols and lower and uppercase charac- ters • If there is anything suspicious going on in any of your accounts, change the password immediately and report the incident to your systems administrator • Do not enter passwords in front of other people (shoulder surfing) • Do not write down your pass- words or share them with anyone • Log off before leaving your de- vice • Log out of systems / applications when you are not using them • Lock your device when you are not using it • Use two-factor authentication (password and mobile/token) if option is available. RAYMOND AZZOPARDI MITA Information Security and Compliance Department Senior Team Leader Choosing the best passwords to protect your accounts