Take tech passwords seriously

Our IT manager at Taskmaster Enterprises is on the warpath and passwords are the key battleground.

Apparently too many of us haven’t changed our passwords in months (if not years) and most of us have passwords so obvious that they are easy to crack. Let’s just say there are a lot of people using their surname, adding a number or two and hoping for the best.

The worst offenders? Unfortunately, it was our managers, who like to think they are too busy to take this stuff seriously.

US tech website Mashable recently had a great post on the 25 worst passwords of 2011, a list compiled from passwords hackers had stolen and put online.

Number one on the list was “password” but my favourite was undoubtedly “trustno1” which ranked in ninth position.

I’ve no idea why passwords such as “monkey”, “Ashley” and “Michael” were so common, but using your name is not smart.

So get serious about this. Use a password with more than eight characters, include numbers, letters, spaces, underscores and special characters, and don’t use the same password for multiple sites or systems.

Get it done – today!