Get Your Mother's Maiden Name Wrong!

Joe_Bloggs

It is difficult to comment on the security protocols of financial intitutions without giving the of game away. A rotating question is often employed. You don't have to stick with the same username for unrelalated accounts . Some variation with the username is likely to provide additional security in my view.
J_B.

bonzer

A good way to generate obscure, difficult to guess passwords that you can still remember is to think of a memorable phrase and then use the initial letter of each word in the phrase as the password. Generally for banks you need 6 - 8 characters and sometimes involving a number so use 6 - 8 words and quote the number literally e.g the phrase:

My 2 Dogs Said Banks Are Thieving Gits

then your password is:

M2DSBATG

You can easily vary this system to generate an easy to remember password that is different for each financial institution by involving the name of the institution e.g. for your current account with HSBC use:

My 2 Dogs Said HSBC Are Thieving Gits

M2DSHATG

For your savings account with Egg use:

My 2 Dogs Said Egg Are Thieving Gits

M2DSEATG

As someone said on the other thread, if you really can't remember passwords then try Password Safe:

http://www.schneier.com/passsafe.html

This is a program that stores all your passwords in a file that is kept encrypted on your computer. You then use a single password to protect the lot and hence only have one to remember. The program was designed by Bruce Schneier who is a very well respected person in computer security and you can have some faith he knows what he's doing.

Bonzer

too_short

From personal experience I no longer use my mothers maiden name as a password. When American Express called my home, my mum answered the phone, pretended to be me and gave them her maiden name, needless to say I was not impressed at all especially as AMEX were demanding money from me when I had cancelled my card over a year before because I had never used it :mad: After several severe conversations with not only my mum but also with AMEX about data protection act etc I only managed to get an appology off of my mum and 18 months later, although they did say that it was a problem with their computer, I am still waiting for AMEX to appologise and stop sending me statements for a card which I haven't had in nearly 2 years.
So I really do suggest that you don't use a family members name for a password especially if they can be mistaken to be you!

Queenie

One tip I was given was to take a favourite place name and spell it backwards. ie: Wales would be selaw.

In today's world it's passwords and pin numbers all the flipping time - wouldn't have been a problem for me 10yrs ago, but the ole grey matter isn't 'mattering' as much as it should do or used to and certainly doesn't matter enough to be able to remember all the different things I keep telling it *does* matter!!!!

Debt_Free_Chick

Queenie wrote:

One tip I was given was to take a favourite place name and spell it backwards. ie: Wales would be selaw.

In today's world it's passwords and pin numbers all the flipping time - wouldn't have been a problem for me 10yrs ago, but the ole grey matter isn't 'mattering' as much as it should do or used to and certainly doesn't matter enough to be able to remember all the different things I keep telling it *does* matter!!!!

LOL

I'm with you on this one

Gorf123

sra wrote:

You can test the strength of passwords here and it gives some tips...

Hmm - all the other advice you gave is great, but this site's not that good for beginners to test how good their password is, in my opinion. I put in six random letters (i.e. chance of less than one in 300 million) and it give quite a poor rating for the password. Put in one of my email addresses, and it maxed out as a brilliant password.

sra

Gorf123 wrote:

Hmm - all the other advice you gave is great, but this site's not that good for beginners to test how good their password is, in my opinion. I put in six random letters (i.e. chance of less than one in 300 million) and it give quite a poor rating for the password. Put in one of my email addresses, and it maxed out as a brilliant password.

fair point.

You would expect them to remove @ as a good special character and even warn you that giving your email address as a password is a bad idea

Welcome to the site

birkee

The option of using software to keep your passwords safe in encrypted form, is a good one, but.....
what happens in the event of computer failure?
I've had one computer fail so dramaticaly (I know not why.) that I lost everything. Sure, the hard drive was useable, but the rest was scrap....motherboard, processor, power supply etc, etc.
Being a bought computer, with a recovery partition on the hard drive, I could not use the recovery partition on the new computer anyway, as the hardware was different.

If you've lost your password software:-
HOW....do you recover all your passwords? You've got them written down as well? Oh, that's all right then!

Perhaps write your passwords in the clear in a word processor, and store the document on a USB memory stick. Copy and paste them to each site entry as required.

TIP: Never buy a computer with preinstalled copy of Windows and a recovery partition on the hard drive. Change the computer, and you have to pay for ANOTHER copy of Windows! Insist on getting the Windows disc with any new computer.

John_Gray

birkee wrote: »

TIP: Never buy a computer with preinstalled copy of Windows and a recovery partition on the hard drive. Change the computer, and you have to pay for ANOTHER copy of Windows! Insist on getting the Windows disc with any new computer.

Did you notice that this thread is nearly SIX YEARS OLD?

I wish you all the luck in the known universe in getting most of the major PC manufacturers of the world to change their policies, and provide a Windows boot disk.

Especially when they say in LARGE UNFRIENDLY LETTERS to make a bootable recovery CD/DVD immediately after you power the new PC/laptop up for the first time...

KimYeovil

My mother's maiden name is regularly rejected. It is the twenty-first century and !!!!!!!s are still discriminated against.