Using Password Protection
Passwords are the most fundamental security tool of any modern operating system and consequently,
the most commonly attacked security feature. It is natural to want to choose a password that is easy
to remember, but very often this means choosing a password that is also easy to guess. Crackers
know that on any system with more than a few users, at least one person is likely to have an easily
guessed password.
By using the ???brute force??? method of attempting to log in to every account on the system and trying
the most common passwords on each of these accounts, a persistent cracker has a good
shot of finding a way in. Remember that a cracker will automate this attack, so thousands of login
attempts are not out of the question. Obviously, choosing good passwords is the first and most
important step to having a secure system.
Here are some things to avoid when choosing a password:
Do not use any variation of your login name or your full name. Even if you use varied
case, append or prepend numbers or punctuation, or type it backwards, this will still be
an easily guessed password.
Do not use a dictionary word, even if you add numbers or punctuation to it.
Do not use proper names of any kind.
Do not use any contiguous line of letters or numbers on the keyboard (such as ???qwerty???
or ???asdfg???).
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