Setting a strong password
Background
Passwords are the key to your online accounts, so it is imperative that you make them difficult for someone else to guess.
Guide to setting a strong password
A good password:
- is at least 12 characters long
- uses both upper and lower case letters, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters
- is not the name of your one of your family members, friends or pets
- does not contain the date of your birthday or other significant event
- can be comprised of two words that have no relation to each other, such as fancyCamel.7
- does not contain: 'password', '12345' or 'qwerty'
- is not used for any of your other online accounts.
If you have trouble remembering all the different passwords for your myriad of online accounts, consider using one of the many apps that are built for this purpose. Lastpass or The Vault are good for this purpose.
Many Flinders systems use the same username password combination. It is advisable that you change this password on a regular basis.
The video below gives some valuable insight into one method you might adopt to setting strong passwords.
Additional resources
About the 'swipe' password
Some students are in the habit of creating a password by running their finger along a row of keys on the keyboard. For example, they'll hit the Z key and swipe their finger along the keyboard to the ? key, creating the password zxcvbnm,./ .
Don't do this!
It's not clever or cool, it's risky! As soon as someone sees you swipe your finger along the keyboard, they have a very good idea of what your password is. Even if you don't swipe all the keys in a row, or pick a different row, or turn on caps-lock, you have given everyone around you enough clues to figure out what your password is.
Don't be lazy when choosing a password. Put in some effort to make it memorable for you but difficult to guess. If you need help doing this, Google 'how to choose an easy to remember secure password' to learn some techniques for developing hard-to-crack passwords.