Author: Jambutty - Geriatric Moderator - Goldentalk
Slightly modified by Kidspips stuffs.

Keep Your Passwords Secure

As a surfer you will no doubt belong to various sites where you have to log in and they will need a password and a user name. You can use different password for different sites and by using mozilla firefox, you can save your passwords directly in your browser so that you don't need to remember or type password every time. Google Crome and Opera also provide this facility. Use a master password to prevent accessing your passwords by others. Chrome doesn't have master password, so better not to save you passwords in chrome browser as anyone can access your password if they can use your PC.

We all use passwords for one thing or another and these can be found by a key logger. But you can defeat them as well without buying expensive software.

NEVER, EVER use a password that is an actual word or a birth date etc. Use random characters and have at least 12, preferably 15 or even more if the site allows more. Take my word for it that with a 15 character password there will be squillions and squillions of different combinations and thus all but impossible to try every one in a reasonable amount of time - even with the fastest computer. For a 15 character password there will be 62^15 different combinations. That is 768,909,704,948,766,668,552,634,368 combinations. If a computer could check ONE THOUSAND MILLION combinations per second it would still take it some 24,381,966,798 years to try them all.

Some sites have a password generator so you can always use that for all your passwords and copy and paste them into place or can allow your browser to remember that password for future.

I do have one nagging thought though. Can you really trust a password generator attached so thoughtfully to some sites? Can you be certain that your selection hasn’t been logged on the site?

So to create your passwords and also store them try this:

Open a Word document and call it Passwords or something. Underneath type in all the letters of the alphabet in upper and lower case and also all the numbers like this:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx yz1234567890
Don’t use the numbers keypad on the right. Use the numbers above the letters. Some sites don’t allow the number pad keys to be used for passwords.

Highlight any three consecutive characters from the alphabet and numbers and copy and paste them alongside your username. Do the same several times – at least 12 times. Then delete 2 characters from each bunch of three and you will be left with a 12 characters password of random letters and numbers. Not a key pressed so even if you have a key logger on board it will not detect anything. I suppose that someone somewhere is working on a copy and paste logger but as far as I know it isn’t here yet.

Your page will look like this:
Passwords

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwx yz1234567890

Site name - your username - IJKZabz12lmn890NOPefgEFG345ijkOPQ456

Then after you delete the unwanted like this:
Site name - your username - Kb2m0PfE5iQ6

In producing your password not a key has been pressed.

Now go to the programme and in the logging in boxes copy and paste your userID and password. When you hit ‘enter’ or ‘log in’ Mozilla/Opera/Crome will pop up asking you if you want to save the details. Click Save. Windows will also poke its nose in asking if you want it to save the logging in details. I don’t trust Windows to keep them secure so I decline the offer. Then the next time that you go to that programme, you will see the username and password box is auto filled up and you will have to hit the ‘enter’ or ‘login’ button.

Just remember that some sites, as well as requiring your logging in details, also require you to input a PIN or Turing number. Currently browsers can also detect it separately and can save the password.

For really important sites like your bank or an Internet payment processor like PayPal or anywhere where money is involved change your password regularly, say once a month.

One final word. From time to time you may get an email that asks you to click on the link in it to go to your bank or whatever to update your personal details. TRASH THE EMAIL It is A FAKE. I don’t care how genuine it may look, IT ISN’T because no bank or other site where money is involved and you need a password to get in will EVER send you such an email.

Thanks to Jambutty for this nice post. Thanks to bdsurf for informing us about this nice source. You will get a series of online security articles in Kidspips. Stay tuned and be secured.

Thanks for the nice post Anna.