Make passwords easy but hard to crack

Did you forget your password because it had too many numbers and special characters? Well ‘passphrases' technique is for you to not only make a strong password but also remember it easily, and make it hard to crack. According to a report in the Washington Post, a new standard is emerging for passwords that is backed by a growing number of businesses and government agencies.

Longer passwords, known as "passphrases", usually 16 to 64 characters long, are increasingly seen as a potential escape route from typing in logins that only a cryptographer could love. A series of studies from Carnegie Mellon University confirmed that passphrases are just as good at online security because hacking programmes are thrown off by length nearly as easily as randomness.

"To a computer, poetry or simple sentences can be hard to crack. Even better, as people are less likely to forget them," the report said. For example, $oUr@b# (Sourabh) can be easily hacked but "MynameissourabhandIlovefootball" is difficult to hack. It not only makes a password strong but also difficult to guess.

"You're definitely seeing more of it. For equivalent amounts of security, longer tends to be more useful for people," said Michelle Mazurek, one of the Carnegie Mellon researchers, now at the University of Maryland College Park. The demand for simpler passwords has grown along with the share of time spent online.