Importance of Strong Passwords

In today’s digital world, strong passwords are critical to safeguard personal information. They play a vital role in our first line of defence in cybersecurity, acting as an electronic barrier to prevent unauthorised access to our systems and data.

Think of passwords like keys to a lock. Without a strong, unique key, it’s easy for anyone to pick the lock. Just as you wouldn’t use a flimsy suitcase lock to secure a bicycle, strong passwords are crucial for safeguarding our most valuable systems and data.

Highly complex passwords like #H8aZl2%@w9Pi&$3G are excellent for security, however they are totally impractical for everyday use. Most users reserve these for things like their home Wi-Fi networks rather than daily logins. It’s a balancing act between security and convenience. Ensuring passwords are both strong and manageable is key to maintaining good security practices without causing frustration.

For simplicity, I recommend using passphrases, they are easier to remember and tough crack.  A passphrase is a sequence of words, or a sentence used to create a strong, memorable password. Let me show you how to create one and explain the levels of complexity they offer.

Start with something memorable. For example, “I swim on Thursdays”.

·     SwimonThursdays This is easily cracked within days using modern cybercrime tools.

·       Swim on Thursdays Adding spaces makes it significantly stronger, increasing the crack time to about 10 years.

·   Sw1m on Thursd4ys.. By replacing two letters with numbers and adding two special characters extends the crack time to centuries.

Choosing a memorable phrase and making minor changes will create a highly complex password, that’s easy to remember but difficult to crack.

Should you have wider cybersecurity questions and/or learn more about how to become more cyber resilient, please reach out to my team at CISO@hse.ie.

Be cyber aware, by cyber safe

Neal Mullen

HSE CISO