How Strong is Your Password?

The Internet is full of people who protect their accounts and PCs with little more than wishful thinking. Remember, for example, those 10,000 stolen passwords from Hotmail which were all 123456 and people's first names?    

Well, today I've got another reason to put some more thought into your passwords. Ghacks recently published a table that shows how long it takes an average PC to crack various types of passwords. Have a 6-character password made entirely of numbers (like 123456)? It can be cracked literally faster than  you can type it in.

So before you head home for the weekend, think about amping up the security on your e-mail and financial accounts. Personally, my favorite method is still creating a custom password from a cypher chart that you can tape to your desk.

And don't forget that some experts say that once you have a good, strong password, leave it alone - there's no value in changing passwords regularly. You know, like IT insists you should.