Howsecureismypassord.net is an online tool that will give you an indication of how long it would take someone to crack your password using brute force.
The exact time that the tool gives is less important than seeing the effect that adding symbols or numbers to your password can make to the overall time.
Don’t try out your real password on the tool – just as a possible caution.
Some ideas for creating secure passwords:
- don’t use words that appear in dictionaries – cracking software will normally start with these due to their common nature
- longer the better
- try to run the words in a sentence together – romeoandjulietplay
- replace letters with symbols or numbers – r0m3o&jul1etplay
- use different passwords for each account
- don’t writing the password down on your desk
Probably the best advice I can give is to go and setup a password management tool like LastPass.com. This way you can generate secure passwords without the temptation of reusing the same one on multiple accounts just so you can remember it. An advantage with this tool is that you can share a password for a website with someone else in such a way that they never actually see the underlying password but can still log in.
If you are a business owner with staff then you have an addition overhead of ensuring your staff maintain a level of password security. Your system/accounts are as secure as the weakest link. If you are holding customer data and records on your system then exposure of that to outside sources could cause a serious reputation hit.