Choosing a Secure Password in Your Apartment in Gainesville

With identity theft a serious concern in today’s society, having a strong password for your computer and online accounts is essential. Unfortunately, coming up with a truly secure password that’s also easy to remember can be difficult. There are a few things to keep in mind when you come up with a password that can help ensure your accounts are protected.

If you want to have a safe password, it’s important to think about identity thieves will try and get it from you. Some of the main ways they steal passwords include:

• Phishing – This type of attack generally involves creating a website or e-mail that tricks the user into giving up their password. Phishing can also take place on unscrupulous websites which require you to register with a password, since many people use the same password for all their accounts.
• Dictionary attacks– These attacks use a program which repeatedly guesses random words until it matches your password.
• Brute force attacks – These attacks use a program that guesses your password by simply using a progressive combination of letters, and possibly numbers and symbols, until it gains access.

There are simple steps you take to defeat each of these techniques. To insulate yourself from phishing, create 3 or 4 passwords that you can use on different sites. This means that even if one account is compromised, most of your others can remain secure. To combat dictionary attacks, avoid using full words. Instead use an anagram for a memorable phrase or song lyrics. For example “four score and seven years ago” could be “fsasya” or, for additional security, “4sa7ya.” The best defenses against brute force attacks are your password’s length, and using a variety of different cases, numbers and additional symbols when possible. Using our previous example, you can add “our Fathers brought forth” and use capital letters and symbols to get “4s&7yaoFbf.” This dramatically increases the number of combinations that an attack has to go through before finding your password.

Fortunately residents at the Bellamay Grand can always use our business center if their computer is compromised. To schedule a tour of our apartment community in Gainesville, contact our main office today.