PICKING A SAFE PASSWORD

The PIN for your ATM card, your phone, your high-end bike is mostly four-digit code. It is not so safe. There are 10 choices for first digit (0....9), ten for second digit and so on. Hence, there are totally 10*10*10*10 =10^4 = 10000 possible 4-digit codes. The computer can check all the choices in a blink of an eye. That is why your online bank account, phones, ATM get locked if you try wrong PINs a few times in a row.

    You can use words as passwords. If you choose six-letter word, there will be 26^6 or 300 million words are possible in the English language. Even 300 million is not a big number for the computer. It will check them out in a few seconds. The scrabble dictionary lists about 20000 meaningful 6-letter words.  So, the cracking problem is further become easy. If you choose predictable words, a human will very easily crack the passwords.  Datagenetics .com says one out of every six PIN is either 1234 or 1111.
    How to pick a unpickable password? Longer password from larger alphabet is the best choice. The normal keyboard has 90 characters. Choose a twenty-character password from it. The fraudster has to try 90^20 possible passwords. Even a high-end computer will take 10000000000000000 times the age of the universe to crack the password.
    If you choose a password like "HsgP58#AB4dfe%", how will you remember? The verdict is, choose a longer password from 90 characters, but you should be able to remember it.

One method to create a strong password
1. Take a simple sentence
SHE LOOKS LIKE ANGEL
2. Remove n number of characters from each word from the end.
let n = 2
SLOOLIANG
3. Now, replace some alphabet with special characters.
o =%
L=@
G=9

We get,
SL%%@1an9
     Remember the method. Write down the process. Keep it safe.
    You can use such a complicated method for online money transactions. Remember, even banks cannot find out your passwords and PINs.

In digital age, we must live with passwords. So, put some extra efforts for secure life.

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