Let's be honest, passwords are annoying. These days we need a password and/or PIN everywhere. We have so many that we can't keep track of them all. We forget to update them; and when we do, it's hard to come up with effective ones that we can still remember, so we procrastinate changing them for months, even years. We all know this is bad, but the alternative - the painful, irritating password creation and memorization process - is sometimes more than we can tolerate. There is hope! Passwords don't have to be complex cryptograms. A few simple methods can help make living with passwords a little easier.

What makes a strong password? To an attacker, a strong password should appear to be a random string of characters. The following criteria can help your passwords do so:

Make it lengthy. Each character that you add to your password increases the protection that it provides many times over. Your passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or longer is ideal.

Many systems also support use of the space bar in passwords, so you can create a phrase made of many words (a "pass phrase"). A pass phrase is often easier to remember than a simple password, as well as longer and harder to guess.

Combine letters, numbers, and symbols. The greater variety of characters that you have in your password, the harder it is to guess. Other important specifics include:

· The fewer types of characters in your password, the longer it must be. A 15-character password composed only of random letters and numbers is about 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, you need to make it considerably longer to get the same degree of protection. An ideal password combines both length and different types of symbols.

By the way in case you were wondering, your password for a Windows 2000 computer can be up to 127 characters long.

· Use the entire keyboard, not just the most common characters. Symbols typed by holding down the "Shift" key and typing a number are very common in passwords. Your password will be much stronger if you choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row of the keyboard, and any symbols unique to your language.

Use words and phrases that are easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess. The easiest way to remember your passwords and pass phrases is to write them down. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing wrong with writing passwords down, but they need to be adequately protected in order to remain secure and effective. In general, passwords written on a piece of paper are more difficult to compromise across the Internet than a password manager, Web site, or other software- based storage tool, such as password managers.

Create a strong, memorable password in 6 steps

Use these steps to develop a strong password:

1. Think of a sentence that you can remember. This will be the basis of your strong password or pass phrase. Use a memorable sentence, such as "My son Aiden is three years old."

2. Check if the computer or online system supports the pass phrase directly. If you can use a pass phrase (with spaces between characters) on your computer or online system, do so.

3. If the computer or online system does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password. Take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you've created to create a new, nonsensical word. Using the example above, you'd get: "msaityo".

4. Add complexity by mixing uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. It is valuable to use some letter swapping or misspellings as well. For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Aiden's name, or substituting the word "three" for the number 3. There are many possible substitutions, and the longer the sentence, the more complex your password can be. Your pass phrase might become "My SoN Ayd3N is 3 yeeRs old." If the computer or online system will not support a pass phrase, use the same technique on the shorter password. This might yield a password like "MsAy3yo".

5. Finally, substitute some special characters. You can use symbols that look like letters, combine words (remove spaces) and other ways to make the password more complex. Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of "MySoN 8N i$ 3 yeeR$ old" or a password (using the first letter of each word) "M$8ni3y0".

6. Test your new password with Password Checker. Password Checker is a non-recording feature on this Web site that helps determine your password's strength as you type.

Password strategies to avoid

Some common methods used to create passwords are easy to guess by criminals. To avoid weak, easy- to-guess passwords:

· Avoid sequences or repeated characters. "12345678," "222222," "abcdefg," or adjacent letters on your keyboard do not help make secure passwords.

· Avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols. Criminals and other malicious users who know enough to try and crack your password will not be fooled by common look-alike replacements, such as to replace an 'i' with a '1' or an 'a' with '@' as in "M1cr0$0ft" or "P@ssw0rd". But these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in case, to improve the strength of your password.

· Avoid your login name.Any part of your name, birthday, social security number, or similar information for your loved ones constitutes a bad password choice. This is one of the first things criminals will try.

· Avoid dictionary words in any language. Criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly guess passwords that are based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions. This includes all sorts of profanity and any word you would not say in front of your children.

· Use more than one password everywhere. If any one of the computers or online systems using this password is compromised, all of your other information protected by that password should be considered compromised as well. It is critical to use different passwords for different systems.

· Avoid using online storage. If malicious users find these passwords stored online or on a networked computer, they have access to all your information.

Click here for more information about how to protect your personal information and online accounts.

Backup of vital company information is critical to a company's survival, no matter what size the company. Recent studies show that 93% of businesses that lose data due to a disaster go out of business within two years.

Increasingly, businesses are turning to disk-based online server backup and recovery solutions as the most cost effective fit for their requirements, when they have neither the volume of data nor the level of technical staff that characterize most traditional backup and recovery operations.

Data protection solutions that combine the latest advancements in disk-based backup with secure, integrated online technologies offer businesses fast and assured recovery of their critical business data while freeing limited technical staff for more value- driven tasks. They also reduce the burden of removing the data and storing it safely off-site, protecting it from local disasters.

Below are the top ten reasons businesses are turning to this technology:

1. Comprehensive and reliable data protection assures up-to-date recovery of all critical business data, including the backup of data in open files

2. Automatic and secure off-site electronic vaulting guarantees successful disaster recovery

3. Better control over restoring data gives businesses access to data when and where it's needed - for any reason

4. Improved security for all sensitive data ensures protection during backup, transmission and storage

5. A complete data protection solution addresses the entire data protection workflow and provides a higher level of reliability, productivity and cost containment

6. Immediate data restoration either over the Internet or from on-site rapid recovery appliances reduces downtime costs

7. Enhanced ability to demonstrate compliance with regulations around information protection is enhanced through consistent, repeatable processes and controls

8. Freedom from routine backup and restore tasks allows redirection of staff time to value-driven projects with greater impact on productivity and profitability

9. Increased competitive advantage is promoted through improved access to data, more predictable cost control and flexible solutions that change with the business

10. Greater reliability in recovering all data where and when needed is ensured, with successful data recovery guaranteed in writing

Click here to download Top 10 Reasons for Using Disk- based Online Server Backup and Recovery. Contact us today for a free assessment and let us protect your business-critical data with a guaranteed disk-based online backup and recovery solution.

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