Talk with an IT guy at my dentist office changed how I handle passwords

Last Tuesday I was waiting for a filling and the office manager mentioned they got hacked because someone used "Dentist2020" as the network password. The IT guy they hired told me most breaches happen because people pick passwords tied to their life, not random ones. He said to use a passphrase like a weird sentence instead, so now I do "PurpleMonkeyWrench42!" for my main accounts. Anybody else switch to passphrases and find it works better?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara_sanchez8810d ago

Always thought passwords needed to be complicated jumbles of letters and numbers to be safe. That passphrase approach makes a lot of sense though, easier to remember something weird like "MyDogAteTheCouch2022" than some random jumble. Changed my main email password this morning to one of those and felt a lot better about it.

faith_price710d ago

Funny you mention that, I did the exact same thing a few months back. Switched all my important accounts over to passphrases after reading about how long random strings actually take to crack versus a weird sentence. Took me a few tries to land on something that wasn't completely ridiculous but still made me chuckle every time I typed it. The relief of not having to reset my password every two weeks because I forgot another jumble of characters was huge. Have you found it harder or easier to remember the passphrase than you expected?