Security – iPhone Password Lock – Do you feel SAFE?

I guess this is not specific to Education, but I know many Tech people who use the iPhone  – so I thought they might be interested in this article.

Research being carried out at the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology in Germany has revealed an iPhone password can be recovered in just 6 minutes from a locked device. In other words, if you lose your iPhone, but it has a password lock, anyone can unlock it in just a few minutes without having to figure out the passcode.

It’s also made clear in their study that using encryption on the iPhone is not a way around this problem as the encryption relies on the user’s secret information (revealed by this method) to gain access. The best advice at the moment is to change passwords as soon as a device is lost or stolen to limit the damage.

It only take 6 minutes to reveal an iPhone password

Securtiy – Password STRENGTH – Can yours be CRACKED?

There are a number of places you can enter in your password and it will give you the level of strength of that password.  Meaning just how quickly can someone crack your password.  The stronger they are, the harder they are to remember, but you really do not have a choice.  There are just too many people out there that want to take advantage of you and anyone else who doesn’t follow certain rules.

I have posted before about idea’s and methods to make your password stronger – I have suggested two applications that manage and create strong passwords for you.  If your interested in reviewing these posts – do a search on Security or passwords.

Like me I have lots of passwords and have not changed them since using LastPass, it would be nice to see just how strong the passwords I am using are!

Microsoft has a WEB page that tells you how strong your password is and methods to increase its security.

Check your password — is it strong?

Security – Passwords – Improve your security & still remember them!

 

I have talked about passwords in the past – suggested some password managers as well. 

Security – Passwords TOO MANY or TOO Little!

Security – Passwords – Can yours be CRACKED

The last few days there has been a few articles around making your important passwords stronger and still remembering them.  These two items don’t normally go together, but I think they do if you use one of the two suggestions below.

You don’t have to use either method for all your passwords, but you might want to consider them for your Windows Login – Password Manager program and your Banking passwords.  These are key to keeping your information and money safe!  The methods add a another level of complexity making it harder to break and easy to remember.

Security – Passwords TOO MANY or TOO Little!

Passwords – you have two camps – for those that are involved in the industry I would say most try to be as secure as possble when creating passwords.  Well I would hope! 

The other side is those that use the same password for everything just because they have forgotten passwords in the past and it’s easy – no thinking involved.

Today no matter what – we have to be more secure in our methods of creating and maintaining passwords.  We have too much of our personal information and there are too many people ready to take advantage of your situation not to do the right thing.

NEVER

–       use the same password more than once

–       Don’t use anything associated with you personally – phone number, Address, family names, birthdays etc – these are the first things people try to use

–       Short passwords are also not good

–       Shouldn’t write your passwords down.

I have over the last few days reviewed and tested a number of Password managers.  I wanted to have a package that would allow me access to the data from three different computers, one being my work systems that doesn’t allow the installation of any software.  I found two packages that matched what I wanted in different ways, both are good and currently I am using both to determine which one I will finally go to.

The two packages are KeePass and LastPass – these both come in a FREE version and do what I need them to.   I find KeePass to be the easier version at this point, everything is just there and I had didn’t have to go looking.  LastPass advantage would be that it does a lot more and is available for Smartphones as well.  I had a 90 plus passwords that I had to import into both packages and in both cases it was not the easiest, but I got it done.

If you don’t have a huge list and you are willing to wait and add your passwords as you load up the web pages, LastPass makes that really easy – Login and it asks you if you would like to add the location and password to your database.  Really nice!  Your database is available to you from anywhere through the WEB as well.

With KeePass I had to save my database on a CLOUD storage sync program in order to have the access from any of my computers.  The program can be loaded up on a USB Key which will allow you to open the program from any computer.  As I said I had to work around things to get KeePass working. 

For people who just want access on a single computer the KeePass product I believe would be the better choice, it’s a little easier to use and very familiar in look to many other programs.  If you’re like me and have several computers that you would like to have access, plus a smartphone then LastPass is the product you should be using.

THE LINKS:

Keypass

LastPass

Security – Wi-Fi – 28% of Wireless Networks are OPEN!

If this article does not make you take the time to secure your Wireless network at home, then I don’t know what will.  A huge amount of people have wireless networks and a large portion of these people have not turned on any security, some of turned off default settings like passwords because they don’t understand!

Take a read of the article and then go home and make sure your network is secure!

Chances are you don’t leave your front door unlocked. And you shouldn’t leave your Wi-Fi network unsecured either.

Many of you may have heard this before, but many still seem to not be doing anything about it. You should. Here’s why. With a $50 wireless antenna and the right software a criminal hacker located outside your building as far as a mile away can capture passwords, e-mail messages, and any other data being transmitted over your network, and even decrypt data that is supposedly protected

Security – Passwords – Can yours be CRACKED

Many years ago you would have a few passwords and be able to remember them, today your Password list can be huge and how do you remember them. 

Most people make it really simple and use the same password for everything, not the best method for sure.  Someone figures it out and they have access to everything!  Others use simple easy to remember passwords – like birthday dates, anniversaries – again not the best method – one of the first things people try to information that can usually be easy to find!

So what do you do – make it easy to remember or create a strong password that is almost impossible to break!  The most secure method is to make a very strong password each time.  I guess you could use a mix, making sure you use strong passwords for online Banking and other important informational locations and your passwords for online contact, news and others simple to remember.  There are methods to creating a strong password and to remember them – Microsoft has an article you should review.

There are many tools available on the WEB and Smart phones that allow you to keep records of your passwords – some say these work well and secure.  I use the Blackberry password manager for many of my passwords.  This is something you will have to determine for yourself!  They are a number of  these that are free, I have tried some and they work well.

Things you want to make sure you don’t do are:

Common password pitfalls to avoid

Cyber criminals use sophisticated tools that can rapidly decipher passwords.

Avoid creating passwords using:

• Dictionary words in any language.
  Words in all languages are vulnerable.
• Words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and abbreviations.
  Words in all languages are vulnerable.
• Sequences or repeated characters.
  Examples: 12345678, 222222, abcdefg, or adjacent letters on your keyboard (qwerty).
• Personal information.
  Your name, birthday, driver’s license, passport number, or similar information.

REVIEW ENTIRE Microsoft DOCUMENT – Create strong passwords

Don’t let your password get cracked!