Tech Tips

Passwords & You. How to Make Your Life Simpler


W2B would like to inform everyone of some security issues that growing businesses face more and more everyday.

Password Standards And Guidelines

Users should select their own passwords and be responsible for their safekeeping
Passwords and logon ID’s must never be shared between users
Passwords should have a minimum length of six characters
Passwords can be comprised of Alphabetic, Numeric, or U.S. National characters in any

combination (?,*,%, etc.)
Make your password easy for you to remember but hard for someone else to guess. Picking letters from a phrase that’s meaningful to you may be the source for a good password. For example "To be or not to be" could become 2BRnot2B?

Must meet at least 3 out of the 4 requirements for quality:
1) at least (1) lower case letter
2) at least (1) upper case letter
3) at least (1) number
4) at least (1) special character (?, *, %, etc.)
Never write down your password; someone else might see it.
Select a unique password. Do not use a password that you are using for some other purpose, such as your PIN at the bank or your password to another system.

How Can I Avoid a Bad Password?

Don’t use:

Dictionary words (millionaire, flowers, bicycles).
Foreign words (octobre, gesundheit, sayonara).
Simple transformations of words tiny8, 7eleven,).
Names, doubled names, first name and last initial (mabell, kittykitty, marissab).
Uppercase or lowercase words (MAGAZINE, licorice).
An alphabet sequence (lmnop) or keyboard sequence (ghjkl;).
Words that have the vowels removed (sbtrctn, cntrlntllgnc).
Phone numbers.

When Should I Change my Password?

You have had the same password for more than 6 months.
You have told your password to anyone else.
You have written your password down anywhere.
You have visited another city and logged on to a system there.
You are officially notified that your password does not meet current standards.

Why Should I Care About Password Security?

Every time you connect, you must provide the magic word; you must prove you’re who you say you are. Should someone guess or steal your password, they can masquerade as you, which means the intruder would than have access to your system. This can lead to identity theft, stolen bank account numbers, PIN numbers and other personal information which means a lot of your time and money may be lost.

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