Are you the weak link?

Or do you use strong passwords?

You must use strong passwords to beat cracker software, which is software that bad guys use to guess passwords really fast.

A strong password has six factors:

1) Numbers like 1234…
2) Upper case letters like ABCD…
3) Lower case letters like efgh…
4) Special characters like @$%^…
5) At least eight characters long
6) No dictionary words.

That last one . . . no dictionary words . . . . is important.  Cracker software can go through the entire dictionary in less than 20 seconds now.  This means that a password like America#1 is only three characters long.  Though it has five of the six factors, it can be guessed in less than 2 minutes.

Change this password to [email protected]#1 and it should last more than 3 days.

Remember:  the reason we need to use strong passwords is to buy time in the event of a security breach.  If there is a compromise of our “network perimeter,” the bad guys can not do anything until they have a password.  If you are not using strong passwords, then you will be the weakest link in our chain!

Click here for more information about User Awareness Training.

Intended Use:

The purpose of Vigilize is to respond to ISO’s complaints that users never read ISO’s “ongoing security awareness training reminders.”  Our tweets are designed to be copied into the subject line of your awareness reminder, with the language on these pages put into the body.  The goal is that the user will have to read the subject line to know to delete the message, and if they understand the subject line the reminder is communicated.  If not, they will go into the message and read the reminder.

Feel free to use Vigilize in your own Security Awareness Program.  Let us know if you have any ideas, suggested tweets, or ways to improve this FREE service.