The information on your computer may be more valuable than you realize. It is wisest to presume that the information contained within is more precious than copper, silver, or gold.

A strong password is your first line of defense for your information. A "strong" password is one that is difficult for people to guess or for a computer program to discover. In general, the longer the password and the more characters you can choose from to form the password, the greater the level of difficulty for discovery.

Some systems have restricted lengths or choice of characters for passwords. It is important to know what the restrictions are.

Some basic rules for choosing a password:

• Never use a combination that can e found in a dictionary.
• Whenever possible, use combinations of lowercase letters, capital letters, numbers, and special characters.
  • For example: Ia2?yotya2?yomnb is a strong password. Are you laughing and asking yourself "how on earth can someone remember that?". It isn't as hard as you might think. The key is to think of a phrase you can remember and then to take letters, numbers, and special characters to form that phrase. Want to know how I could remember that Ia2?yotya2?yomnb is my password? Think "I am 20-something years old this year and 20-something years on my next birthday." By taking the first letter of each word, I have a combination of capital and lowercase letters and I've mixed in numbers and special characters.
  • Don't use the same password for EVERYTHING. If you do and your password is compromised the person who now knows it can access everything. You can change it? Sure, but chances are good that you will overlook a site or system and that's the one that will get you into trouble.
    
  • It is unreasonable, given the number of sites and systems in use today for a person to use a unique password for each instance. We can't remember that many and so have to resort to writing them down, which makes them vulnerable to theft. Instead, choose 3 or 4 different ones that you can remember.
• Be wary of anyone who asks for your password to a system. There are legitimate times when you might be asked for it, but there are also schemes to part you and your passwords. The legitimate times usually occur when YOU have asked a support person for assistance. The schemes often occur as the requester asks for YOUR help to verify a problem or to check something.
• If you get an email asking you to log into a site, especially one that involves financial matters, because of a problem, DO NOT USE ANY SUPPLIED LINKS. Instead visit the site using your normal bookmark or type in the address you normally use into the address line.
  • Schemes will sometimes send you a link that appears to be legitimate but instead send you to a bogus site resembling the one you normally use. If there truly is a problem with a financial site, there will usually be some sort of message awaiting you on the site. If there isn't such a message, contact the support personnel for that site and ask for confirmation of the message. Whenever possible, forward the original message to the support personnel. From that, the support personnel should be able to confirm if the message is legitimate or a scheme.

The second line of defense is requiring the use of the password. Not a favorite option, but one that is important. The key here is to balance between security and functionality.

• Example: If I have a car full of groceries for the month and need to carry them into my house, I have to decide if it is important to lock the car between each trip into my house. If I live on the 9th floor of a high-rise apartment building in a crime-ridden area, I would be foolish to leave my car unlocked between trips. If I'm parked in my driveway next to the kitchen door in a relatively safe area, locking the car between trips can be excessive.
• In a similar way, leaving your computer "un-locked" can be foolish or excessive. If I'm working at my computer and the desk phone rings, it would be excessive of me to "lock" my computer. If I'm going down the hall to the toilet (out of sight of the computer), it would be foolish of me to leave the computer "un-locked".

"Locking" a Windows-based computer requires logging out or pressing the "lock" key combination of the "FlyingWindowsKey" plus the letter L as you hold down the FlyingWindowsKey.

If you said "Huh?" to that last choice, look the spacebar on your keyboard. Then look to the left two keys. Typically, you will see the "FlyingWindows"(four wavy blocks) logo on a key. You may also see that same "FlyingWindows" logo key to the right of your spacebar on some keyboards. Like using the SHIFT key, it doesn't matter which one you use.

FlyingWindowsKey + L = lock the computer

This procedure does not interfere with anything you were doing. It simply requires the entry of a password, the same one you use when you start up your computer, to continue working.