| Maintaining a secure computer is a good | | | | the attacker is taking every possible |
| defense against becoming a victim of Identity | | | | combination of numbers and letters and |
| Theft. Use a secure password. By secure, I | | | | special characters and creating a hash to try |
| mean a password that is not easily guessable, | | | | and match the hash stored by the computer. |
| such as a word you may find in the | | | | |
| dictionary. These types of passwords can be | | | | To prevent yourself from being subjected to a |
| found by someone using what is known as a | | | | "brute force" attack, you can set up a |
| "dictionary attack" This type of attack | | | | security policy that will disable the account |
| involves using the words that are found in | | | | after a certain number of unsuccessful |
| the dictionary and comparing those to a hash | | | | attempts. |
| that has been generated by the Operating | | | | |
| System. If the attack matches the hashes, | | | | To further prevent yourself from being |
| then the password has been compromised. Don't | | | | compromised since there are programs that can |
| use birthdays or Social Security Numbers as | | | | download the hashes stored in your computer, |
| well. It has been recommended that your | | | | you may want to set some kind of time limit |
| password be at least 8 characters long, | | | | for your passwords. A good example would be |
| including small and capital letters, numbers, | | | | that the password would have to be changed |
| and special characters. | | | | every 90 days, and the same password can't be |
| | | | used within a 180 period. This will help |
| A password like "alphabet" can easily be | | | | ensure that if someone did get the hash of |
| compromised. If you were to change it up a | | | | your password, that by the time it is |
| little by making every other letter a | | | | compromised, it would be an obsolete |
| capital, "AlPhAbEt", this will improve the | | | | password. |
| security. You can then take it a step further | | | | |
| and replace the "E" with the number "3", so | | | | Try to check your logs to see if there have |
| then your password looks like "AlPhAb3t". | | | | been any attempts on the password. This will |
| Then take the "l" and change it to the number | | | | certainly let you know if someone is looking |
| "1" or even the "!". So now the password | | | | at your computer in order to compromise the |
| looks like "A!PhAb3t". It will take a super | | | | data that is stored on it. |
| computer an extremely long time to break this | | | | |
| password. | | | | By maintaining a secure password, you are |
| | | | ensuring that your private information will |
| At this point the attacker would have to use | | | | remain private. |
| a method known as "brute force". That means | | | | |