Password Protection

You would think in this day and age that security would be a topic on every bodies minds when it comes to protecting their valuable data and credentials online. Most of tend to protect ourselves against the well publicized threats of Virus and spy ware and install software to ensure we are safe. Hands up those of you who have a password that uses a name of a pet or a loved one... come on you know who you are fess up!

Well OK I am assuming by the silence its a large number. Some sites will now not accept passwords unless they are of a certain strength.. this means it has to meat certain standards and you would do well to look at this as a guideline even if these are not enforced by the site.

The guidelines can vary a little but will normally be something like:
- at least 8 characters in length
- contain at least 1 number
- contain upper and lower case letters
- contain 1 special character, such as: ! & * % $ @ # +
- be changed at least once a year
- be different for each site you use

this may seem a bit of a hassle but if you want to be protected then you must follow these guidelines. Of course the downside of this is it is more difficult to remember the growing list of passwords.