8 characters long and include at least one capital. 25 worst passwords of 2011 revealed. The most common passwords of 2011 — obviously ones you should avoid using — range from the simple "password" and "123456," to "football" and "michael," data posted by hackers reveals. "Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords," said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, Inc., the computer security firm that compiled the list, in a statement Monday.
"If you have a password that is short or common or a word in the dictionary, it's like leaving your door open for identity thieves. " He advised anyone using any of the passwords on the list to change their passwords immediately. SplashData said it compiled the list from files containing stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Many on the list are sequences of numbers between 1 and 6 in order, either forward or backward. The complete Top 25 are: Encrypting Amazon Storage: Not So Simple. At my Interop presentation last week, a few people asked me about how secure storage on Amazon AWS can be. Here’s my take. First off, you’d have to say which type of storage you’re thinking of using before you figure out how secure you can make it. There are 3 different kinds of storage within Amazon: Instance storage – This is storage which comes included with your Server instance when you start it up in AWS.
Think of this as your normal C: drive. Raw block storage – known as Elastic Block Storage (EBS). Simple Storage Service (S3) – This is an independent, persistent, cloud storage service offered by AWS which is accessible “only” via a well defined HTTP based web API. With this new announcement, Amazon provides for an option for customers to use encryption hosted by AWS to encrypt/decrypt S3 data – which in turn provides some relief to S3 customers who do not want to rewrite their applications to use the client library.
Password Strength. Passwords – Good to Know – Google. Passwords are the first line of defense against cyber criminals. It’s crucial to pick strong passwords that are different for each of your important accounts and it is good practice to update your passwords regularly. Follow these tips to create strong passwords and keep them secure. Use a unique password for each of your important accounts like email and online banking Choosing the same password for each of your online accounts is like using the same key to lock your home, car and office – if a criminal gains access to one, all of them are compromised.
So don’t use the same password for an online newsletter as you do for your email or bank account. It may be less convenient, but picking multiple passwords keeps you safer. Keep your passwords in a secret place that isn’t easily visible Writing down your passwords isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Use a long password made up of numbers, letters and symbols The longer your password is, the harder it is to guess.