The access code is the main barrier we have to prevent intrusion into our systems and accounts. It is what prevents anyone from entering, collecting information, accessing our contacts, supplanting our identity … Now, this is precisely why we must take important measures to protect ourselves. Strong, complex keys must be created that are not easily ascertained by third parties. In this article, we are going to talk about passphrases and why they can be a very important alternative to passwords.
Using strong passwords is a must
As we say, using passwords that are strong, secure, difficult to figure out, is important to protect ourselves. It is what prevents an intruder from entering our accounts, that our data is exposed and that, ultimately, we can take risks.
We all know the importance of generating keys that are long, that contain different characters to make it difficult to be found. For example, we can all think that a password that is of the type 49219431 or ejoasfwj are not secure; in these cases we are simply using a series of numbers or letters.
On the contrary, we could say that a password that contains a mixture of letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers and other special symbols, would be reliable. For example one that is of the type iD3 $ Nw28% -r) . This makes our account much more protected, that a possible intruder who tries to carry out brute force attacks has it much more difficult.
Now, is it easy to remember such a password? The answer is logically no. Even less if we take into account that each of the records that we have, of the keys that we use, have to be unique. We cannot repeat the same password on several sites if we do not want to compromise security.
That’s where passphrases come in . We are going to see why they are a very interesting alternative to traditional keys, passwords that, as we have mentioned, can be difficult to remember.
Passphrases vs. traditional passwords
Passwords phrases can be a very interesting option to protect our accounts and to be able to remember them easily. On the one hand we are going to have all the good things about complex codes, the fact of using symbols, uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers … But on the other hand we are going to give it a touch that makes it easier for us to remember them.
The idea of passphrases is to make it easier to be remembered, but without having to use passwords that are basic . That is, everyone could remember a password that contains our name, surname, date of birth … Some place where we have lived, favorite sport or anything that is part of our life. However that means creating insecure keys, passwords that only contain letters and numbers.
The passphrases consist of making a merge between words, figures and characters that we can remember, but using everything that a strong key should have. The result is a long password, with a significant number of characters, and also using letters (upper and lower case), numbers and other symbols.
Let’s put a password that is “nicklamosantiago”. We could easily remember it. Now as a key it is a disaster. Now let’s think about a passphrase related to just that. That key could become ” M3114m0 $ 4n / I460 “. Basically what we have done is create a phrase that is very easy to remember, but giving it a differential touch with uppercase and lowercase letters, changing letters for numbers and symbols. That way, a hacker using a brute-force dictionary would have a hard time figuring out that key.
That example we have given is very basic and simple. The idea is to create a passphrase that contains words or digits that are familiar to us, but without actually using them as such. Always giving it that different touch, those “random” symbols that make that key complex, but also that we can remember it more easily.
What do you think of phrase passwords? Do you consider it a useful solution to create complex and easy-to-remember passwords?