Passwords – Back to Basics!Michael McKinnon, AVG (AU/NZ) Security Advisor

mmckinnon@avg.com.au

An Avalanche Technology Group Company

What is a Password?

What should we aim for in a password?

• Should be easy to remember

• Should be hard to guess

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World’s Top 10 Most Used Passwords

• 123456

• 123456789

• Password

• 12345678

• 654321

• 12345

• Password123

• 1234567

• abc123

• Qwerty

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Can someone guess your password?

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• Favourite Football Team?• Pet‟s Name?• Family Members?

Rank these Password in order of Strength…

1. E56#av+Yb!

2. Password123

3. aaaaaAAAAA#####43

4. 123456

5. lucasjames

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MOST SECURE

Why? Anatomy of a good Password

• The password: aaaaaAAAAA#####43

• It is 17 characters in length

• Contains upper and lowercase letters

• Contains numbers

• Contains the „#‟ symbol

• How many combinations?

• 72 combinations, 17 combinations long is 72^17

• That‟s 37 thousand billion billion billion combinations!!

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The Golden Rules of Passwords

• Never, never, ever give your password to someone else!

• Absolute minimum of 10 characters

• Use a combination of different characters

• upper and lowercase (a – z, A – Z)

• at least one numeral ( 0 – 9 )

• at least one symbol ( !@#$%^&*()_+= )

• Password length is always better than randomness

• Must be easy to remember

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Password Separation – Neat Tricks!

• Make new passwords for different accounts you access…

• Start with your “base” password (aaaaaAAAAA#####43)

• “Facebook” – you could take the letters “f” and “b” from Face Book and create a new password:

• aaaaaAAAAA#####43fb

• “Twitter” – you could take the letters “t” and “r” from Twitter and create another password:

• aaaaaAAAAA#####43tr

• Mix it up! Be Creative! Don‟t use these examples!

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Thank You!

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Summary:1. Easy to remember2. Size does matter3. Separation is vital

Happy Strong Password Making

Michael McKinnonAVG (AU/NZ) Security Advisor

mmckinnon@avg.com.au