How to create a secure password, according to science

[OyaYansa]

There is little precaution to prevent us from stealing our account in social networks, email and other services and applications. Currently, cyber attacks to subtract user access data are booming, so creating a secure password is vital to prevent hackers from accessing our profile.

Although you may have heard different tips for creating a secure password, many of them are not based on scientific criteria. For example, one of the most widespread indicates that you have to create complicated passwords, combining numbers, letters, punctuation marks and other symbols. However, at the moment of truth these types of keys are difficult to remember, so users end up reusing the same codes.

A few months ago, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched new recommendations to create strong clues based on studies and case studies, and now a study conducted by a team of researchers of different US universities gives us other tips for creating secure passwords according to science

These scientists have analyzed how different approaches to password cracking work to better understand the method attackers follow to guess keys. Criminals use computer programs that allow them to make millions or even billions of assumptions in a few hours, allowing them to end decrypting them.

The process can begin by testing with the most po[CENSORED]r words in the dictionary, then adding a number or a symbol, the first letter with capital letters, and so on. Once they have given the password, the attackers can try to enter it to access other user accounts, as many people reuse their credentials.

With this in mind, when choosing a strong key, users have to focus not on how difficult it is to guess for a human, but on how difficult it is to understand a machine. To achieve this, the researchers leave us the following recommendations to create a secure password:

Use long keys that contain at least 12 characters and mix two or three different types of characters (lowercase, uppercase, digits, and symbols) in unpredictable places (not at the end or at the beginning).
Avoid including names of people, pets, places you've lived, sports teams, dates of birth or things you like. Also do not use common phrases or lyrics.
Avoid common or easily decipherable patterns (abc, 123, etc.) or keyboard patterns (qwerty, 1qazxsw2, etc.).
A good way to create a secure password is to compose a sentence that nobody has said before and use the first or second letter of each word as a password, mixing it with other types of characters. So you can easily remember it and it will be very difficult to decipher it for a machine.
Never reuse passwords.