--- title: The Pitfalls of Passwords description: Passwords are the keys to our now digital lives. This article gives you an insight to the ease and difficulty of choosing. The pitfalls of passwords. image: https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/hs-fs/file-18394618-png/images/password_strength.png --- ## [Northampton Computer Repair](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/) 413-341-3571 12 Main St, Northampton, MA 01060 # Our Blog ## [The Pitfalls of Passwords](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/bid/140544/The-Pitfalls-of-Passwords) Posted by [Serges LaRiviere](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/author/serges-lariviere) on Wed, Mar 07, 2012 - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) Recently the Government of [Syria was hacked](http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/report-assads-office-hacked-password-was-12345) and their emails were leaked to the web.  Of the 78 email inboxes that were hacked, some of them used the default password “12345? which some email servers use for new accounts with an instruction to change the password the first time you log on. King Roland  “*The combination i*s 1-2-3-4-5? Dark Helmet  *“1-2-3-4-5? That’s the stupidest combination I’ve ever heard of in my life! That’s the kinda thing an idiot would have on his luggage!”* President Skroob  *“1, 2, 3, 4, 5? That’s amazing! I’ve got the same combination on my luggage”* The fact that the government of Syria has problems with their IT infrastructure aside, it does raise the question of how can we protect our own accounts properly. Hackers typically use two different types of attacks to break passwords. One is the dictionary attack, which guesses your password against a list of commonly used words. The other type of attack is called a brute force attack which guesses passwords one letter at a time until it gets the correct one (i.e., *a, aa, aaa, b*, *ab, aab *and so on) According to [Google’s password recommendations](https://accounts.google.com/PasswordHelp), a secure/strong password would be something like *Serf$uPd0oD!*, combining upper and lowercase, phonetic spelling (serf and dood), numbers instead of letters and punctuation. Unfortunately, while a password like this makes it difficult for a hacker to guess the password, it also makes it difficult for us to remember. So how can we make a password that not only is resistant to being cracked by a automated computer program, but also is easy for us to remember? Comic artist and former NASA roboticist Randall Munroe of *xkcd *has an answer: [![](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/hs-fs/file-18394618-png/images/password_strength.png?width=600&height=601&name=password_strength.png)](http://xkcd.com/936/) xkcd - Password Strength What it all means is that the first presented password 'Tr0ub4dor&3?' is easier for password-cracking software to guess than 'correcthorsebatterystaple'. The comic makes a great point in that more complex does not always mean safer. The most important thing really is that we should start looking at what we type as 'pass-phrases' instead of 'pass-words'. Tags: [passwords](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/passwords), [cloud](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/cloud), [encrypted passwords](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/encrypted-passwords), [password protection](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/password-protection), [password security](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/password-security), [Computer Protection](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/computer-protection), [PC tips](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/noho-pcs-blog/topic/pc-tips) Search for More Posts Find it! ### Subscribe to Email Updates *Disclosure: We may include links in our articles for products and services we recommend, in very few cases we may receive an affiliate referral fee if you purchase or subscribe via our link* ## Our Most Popular Posts | **Kaspersky Lab's Award-Winning Software** **_____________________________________** **Data Security Has Never Been So Easy** **[![How Much Is Your Data Worth to You? Read This Free Guide!](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/166626/399657de-c3b0-4cab-8600-0dad89aa0cc0.png)](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/166626/399657de-c3b0-4cab-8600-0dad89aa0cc0) ** | ![Kaspersky-boxes-CTA-img](https://www.northamptoncomputerrepair.com/hs-fs/hub/166626/file-2268380118.png) | | --- | --- | © 2016 Northampton Computer Repair