Our own Carnegie Mellon’s Security and Privacy Institute tested a group of people to determine their understanding of what makes a strong password. Naked Security’s ArticleNaked Security’s Article posted yesterday discusses this and the main thing that I took from the article is the following:
CyLab’s respondents knew passwords are more secure when you:
- Capitalize the middle of words rather than the beginning
- Place digits and symbols in the middle rather than the end
- Use random digit sequences instead of obvious ones, like years
- Choose words other than common first names
- Avoid words that are personal to you, like your child’s name
- Avoid words that are obviously related to the site or account you’re trying to protect
So when you are creating a new password to secure a site you may want to take direction from above.
Here is a video from Naked Security on how to pick a proper password: