As a network administrator and consultant over the years, I have encountered more than my fair share of people who “lazily” set and maintain their network passwords. For instance they might pick their dog’s name and each time the network policy forces they change their password, they simply count up a number. For instance, their password starts out as roverjones and every password change they simply put roverjones1, roverjones2, roverjones25 etc. etc. This is not recommended because if someone can guess or brute force your password, they have the keys to the kingdom (network) and can do all sorts of nasty stuff to you and the rest of your company.
The user’s argument against going with a more complex password is typically “But I’d never remember that and I’d have to have it Post-IT noted to my monitor”. Which I must say is a much worse scenario.
So here’s a little tip for those of you who go for the counting method of password management. It’s not the most secure way in the world, but it’s more secure than the incremental 1, 2, 3 method. Simply enter the number you normally would 2 times and hit the shift key when entering the number the second time.
So instead of it being simply roverjones23, it’s roverjones23@#
roverjones24 = roverjones24@$
roverjones25 = roverjones25@%
If you can, you might even put the number first. (i.e. 25roverjones@%) which in our new code is the same as 25roverjones25 only this time, you’ve just hit the shift key. Which would throw off a brute force attack.
You see what I’m getting at? You really don’t have to put that much more thought into it. And remember, the network you save may be my own!
Try it out and let me know what you think.
