Password Protection and You!

It is considered "best practice" to routinely change your passwords, regardless of whatever nonsense is in the news.  Changing them every 3 to 6 months is more than sufficient for most people

To check the strength of your passwords, use this link:
https://howsecureismypassword.net/

Size Matters
The strength of your passwords is determined primarily by its length.  A longer password is more secure than a shorter password.

Numbers, Symbols, and Capital letters
These things improve your password security, but they also make it harder for you to remember your own passwords!

Keep it simple
Use a password that you will remember.  Make one of the letters uppercase, and end it with a number and a symbol that you will remember.

How long would it take a typical desktop computer to hack a password?
length of 8 (letters): less than a minute
length of 9 (letters): 20 minutes
length of 10 (letters): 9 hours
length of 12 (letters, a number, a symbol): 2,000 years
length of 14 (letters, 1 number, 1 symbol, a capital letter): 2,000,000,000 years

Samples of good and bad passwords:
"password" can be cracked in a millisecond
"Password^7" would take 58 years to crack
"passwordpassword"  would take 345,000 years to crack
"passwordpasswordpassword" would take 72,000,000,000,000,000 years to crack

wow, for 2 of the passwords I sometimes use it would take 25,000 years, for the main one I currently use...a million years. Ha!