Definition of strong password

A strong password is that one which can not be easily broken by known methods. The most popular attack methods include:

• Brute force attack - using this method an attacker carries out millions of attempts to guess the password using the sequentially generated phrases. This type of attack in theory guarantees that the password will be found, since the attempts are performed with all possible combinations of password characters. Fortunately, using this method an attacker cannot estimate the time needed to find the correct password and because of the large number of attempts, it can take even millions of years. Generally you can accept the principle that the time needed to find the correct password is strictly dependent on the length of the password. The longer password is, the longer time is needed. Therefore, strong password must be long to effectively defend itself against brute force attacks.
• Dictionary attack - this method is somewhat similar to the brute force attack. Similarly, the attacker performs many attempts to crack the password but in contrast he uses a dictionary of human language (for example English) and tries to find the password using words from dictionary. Therefore, to protect the password against the dictionary attack, it must not be a word from human language .

People breaking passwords also use variations of both methods, however, the general rule of conduct remains the same. In summary, a strong password should meet the following conditions:

• Password must be long - we recommend that you use passwords containing at least 10 characters.
• Password must not be a word from human language - otherwise, it can be easily cracked with a dictionary attack.
• Password should be built with letters (both upper and lowercase), digits and special characters - such a password will be resistant to a dictionary attack. Also, some variants of brute force attack will not be able to break it. For example, if the brute force method uses only letters and digits to speed up the search, the password containing special characters will be absolutely safe. LoginCode allows you to enter any character in the password box. Take the advantage of this feature!
• Never use your private data as a password - never use your surname, date of birth etc. That information is available to many people and attacker will try it for sure.
• Never use the password which is an answer for password prompt - if you do it, anyone can find the password.
• Use additional passwords for folders and items - LoginCode allows you to set passwors for folders and items. Use this feature to increase the security of your most sensitive data.

Best practices for creating strong passwords

Below you can find some most interesting ways to create a strong password.

• The easiest method we can recommend is the invention of some sentence that will be easy for you to remember. For example, such a sentence can be:

   

  In the 3rd class I was fastest in the school !

   

  Please note that it is important to use the widest possible range of characters (uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, special characters). In the next step, select first letters of all words in previously formed sentence. In case of the sentence presented above it would be:

   

  It3cIwfits!

   

  Perhaps you think that you will never manage to remember something like this. Note, however, that it is enough to memorize the sentence that you have invented first.
• If you want to maximize the security of your password, we suggest that you invent yourself some rules that you will apply when typing the password. For example, you can press the Shift key while typing numbers to enter corresponding special characters. The other example is replacement of some letters with similarly looking numbers (for example replace I with 1, S with 5, O with 0 etc).

In summary, we recommend that you think for a moment whether your password meets the requirements of strong password. LoginCode makes your life easier since you have to remember just one password. However, it cannot invent the password for you.