The Perfect Password


While the murmurs in InfoSec circles grow louder that the password is on its last breath as an authentication method, the reality is that most of us create, use, and lose passwords every day in our digital lives.

So what would the perfect password be?

  • it would be easy to remember and type
  • it would be uncrackableby guesses or by computation

And what makes a password uncrackable?

  • length – yes, length, and NOT complexity.
  • seemingly random characters
  • different passwords for different websites (using the same one for all your accounts is asking for trouble…)

Yes, the Internet is full of random password generators (F4r$@kd8Wb!9, anyone?), tricks ($3cur3P@$$w0rd oh-so-clever), and tips (“use the first letter of each word of the title of your favorite song”), truth is none of them really do the trick as they create passwords which may be uncrackable – but they are definitely NOT easy to remember or type!

So what would help us create the perfect password? (What, you don’t believe there could be such a thing?)

How about a good old grammatically correct and complete English sentence?

Iwasbornonthefirstdayoftheeigthmonthin1932. (Yes, no spaces, as all password fields aren’t designed to accept spaces)

Myfavoritecolorsarered,pink,andyellow!

IwanttobeabillionairebeforeIam30yearsold.SohelpmeGod!

Get the idea?

And if you want to make them unique to the website you’re using-

TWIT!BubblesButterfliesandBigBrassyButtons!TER

GooNotAllWhoWanderAreLost!gle

Yes, spend a few minutes thinking out a full, complete sentence, and use it as your password. And yes, please don’t use any of the formats or examples above. As a person who’s written scripts to break passwords, I can tell you that if on the Internet, it is already in some Hacker’s dictionary file, rainbow table, and his algorithm.

Devise your own formula, have fun with it – and make beautifully long, easy to remember passwords.