Passwords: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: Good Password Advice

For your convenience and protection, here are some guidelines that will help you choose a good password. They are here to educate and inform, not intimidate or offend:

• Choose a password that is easy for you to remember.
• Choose a password that will be hard for others to guess.
• NEVER choose something personal about yourself as your password, such as your birthday, your favorite color, names of people close to you. These are the first things that crackers will try to guess.
• NEVER choose words which may be found in a dictionary. Crackers often use large electronic dictionaries containing millions of words to compromise a system or account.
• DO choose a password which contains a combination of upper-case letters, lower-case letters, and numbers.
• DO take a favorite phrase and modify it, such as you would do on a personalized license plate.
• DO NOT use your actual license plate number. DO substitute characters such as $ for S, 1 for L, O for 0, etc. DO NOT use naturally occuring pattersn on a keyboard, such as "qwerty" or "asdfjkl".
• DO NOT use the same password for different accounts. If you have other accounts on the Internet that require a password, make sure each password is unique.
• DO NOT choose a password less than 6 characters in length.

• NEVER write your password down. If you must write it down, lock it up somewhere.
• NEVER give your password out to anyone. It is common to think it is OK to give your password out to computer retailers, computer service technicians, your Internet provider, friends, or relatives. However, this is one of the more common methods used to compromise accounts or privacy. Authorized UTMA personnel who require access to your account do not require your password. If you believe that you have inadvertently given your password to anyone, or believe your account has been compromised in anyway, please e-mail security@utma.com as soon as possible. If a computer retailer or technician is installing your Internet software for you, he or she can set it up without requiring you to disclose your password. If you are asked to disclose your password, you can always refuse.
• DO change your password often.
• REMEMBER, you are responsible for anything that occurs from your username/password combination.
• REMEMBER, unauthorized use of a computer is a federal offense! Computer crime is investigated by the FBI, and is prosecuted through the federal judicial system.

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