Video Transcript
HI there! I’m Wayne and I’m here to talk about your needs – more specifically one need. One that every computer user should be considering and that’s the need for a strong password. Viruses and malware are getting more and more complicated, now what if your computer gets stolen? For anyone who tries to access your lost or stolen machine the first thing that their gonna face is the need to put in a password. Stronger password, the harder it is to get it in, the more protected your machine is. So let’s talk about some examples of what to avoid when making your strong password.
You want to make sure that your password isn’t something that’s relatable to you. Avoid names, dates, locations or using common words where some letters are replaced with numbers. If someone you know is trying to guess your password, those are the first things they will try. If you want to make your password strong, you should use different kinds of characters. Next to between lower and upper case letters, numbers and special characters could make your password exponentially stronger.
To show you how small changes can make your password stronger, let’s go to www.passwordstrengthcalculator.org . If you have a password that is eight characters long, using lower case letters, your password can crack in a fraction of a second. If you take that same password and add some capital letters, special characters and numbers, it takes 20 minutes for a regular computer to crack it. If you make the password just a bit longer, maybe 12 characters while still incorporating the various kinds of characters, even the fastest computer in the world will take weeks to figure it out.
And that’s all it really takes, a strong password can do a lot to protect your data. Even a small change in the character in your existing password can make a world of difference. So remember, keep it strong, change it often and you’ll help keep your computer and your data more secure.