Amazon. com Help Choose a Strong Password

How do I Choose Strong Passwords?

Spirion provides you the ability to enforce good behavior and pick strong passwords. The guidance below is helpful for choosing strong passwords:

A strong password is easy for you to remember but hard for someone else to guess and contains a mix of at least uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and digits. Even stronger passwords may contain a symbol. A password of six characters is sufficient, shorter passwords are easier to guess and longer passwords are great as long as they are not too difficult for you to remember without writing it down.

Have upper or lower case letters. Have digits and/or punctuation characters. Are six characters long. Are easy for you to remember, so you will not be tempted to write them down. Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder and learn it.

Have both upper and lower case letters. Have digits and/or punctuation characters. Are eight characters long. Are easy for you to remember, so you will not be tempted to write them down. Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder and learn it.

A strong password is not:

Personal information such as your name, phone number, social security number, birth date or address. Any word in the dictionary - in any language, or based closely on such a word (such as a word spelled backwards). A word with letters simply replaced by digits. For example, P@ssw0rd is not a strong password. A sequence or repeated characters. "12345678," "222222," "abcdefg," or adjacent letters on your keyboard

Amazon. com Help: Choose a Strong Password

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How to Choose a Strong Password (with examples)

Choosing a strong password is critical to securing your account. Strong and secure passwords can also be a pain, which is why many of us can fall into the bad habit of sharing a password or two across many different accounts. This practice, while helpful in remembering our passwords, makes us more susceptible to attacks on our accounts.

Strong password basics

1. Make sure the password is at least 10 characters long

The general rule of thumb use to be a minimum of 8 characters but 10 or more is safer, especially with the high availability of cheap compute power to brute force shorter passwords.

2. Don’t use common dictionary words

This can be a tough one to avoid, as the temptation is to use common dictionary words as part of our passwords. Yes, it’s true, one of the most common passwords in use is “Password.” And, no, that’s not a good practice.

3. Use a mix of letters (upper and lower case), numbers, and special characters

Make your password at least 30,000 times stronger by using a combination of mixed-case letters, numbers and special characters compared to a password consisting of only lowercase letters. One trick that is Not suggested is replacing characters with common number and special character replacements in dictionary words, like this: tr1ck0rteat. Also stay away from using sequential patterns like: “123”, “abc”, or even common sequential keyboard patterns like “asdf” or “qwerty”.

4. Don’t use personally identifiable information

Those trying to break into your account may have information about you like your birthdate, address, phone number, etc. They will use that information to help them guess your password, so it’s best to leave that type of info out of your passwords.

5. Use a unique password for every account

Having the strongest password on the planet but using it across multiple accounts does you no good if one of those accounts is compromised. For example, Yahoo discovered a major breach that compromised about a billion of its users’ accounts. If your Yahoo password was strong but used across other accounts, the attackers could use your Yahoo password to log in to those other accounts. If you were to purchase dedicated servers from us we would highly recommend using a completely unique password.

Weak password examples

Below are some examples of weak passwords that may not appear weak at first look but are after a little closer examination. A brief explanation of what makes these bad choices follows each:

3304435789This is someone’s phone number. It breaks two of the basic rules above by being all numbers and using personal information.

April101988This is someone’s birthday. While it’s over 10 characters long and contains a mix of letters and numbers, it contains personally identifiable information, lacks special characters, and starts with a common dictionary word.

P@ssword345This password might seem like it meets the basics for a strong password, but it fails in a subtle way. It is over 10 characters long, contains a mix of letters, numbers and special characters, and doesn’t contain personally identifiable information. However, replacing letters with common symbols (“@” for “a” in this example) is not a secure practice, as these are easily guessed replacements. It also depends on a fairly common sequential pattern in 345.

Strong password tips and examples

Fear not, creating strong and secure passwords is not impossible. Combined with the strong password basics outlined in this article, here are some tips and examples for creating passwords that will help keep your account safe:

1. Use a phrase and mix it up with acronyms, nicknames, and shortcuts

Making use of acronyms and shortcuts can provide secure yet easy to remember passwords. For example:

HumTdumt$@t0nAwa11 (Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall) 1tsrAIn1NGcts&DGS! (It’s raining cats and dogs!) P@$$GOandCLCt$200 (Pass Go and collect $200)

2. Have some fun, incorporate emoticons

Emoticons are the text format of emojis, commonly seen as various “faces” such as: 🙂 🙁 😮 Incorporating emoticons can help make passwords strong:

@11Work:-(&NOplayMAK3$jackD11:’( (All work and no play makes Jack dull) L37sH@vEsumfUN!;-)(Let’s have some fun!) I lp_

BNM<>Li&*()_+

ZSxDcFvGbHnJmK, L.:/”

4. Use a strong password and customize for the specific account

This technique is particularly useful for when you have a strong password and would like to use it across multiple accounts on any web services you use. Since we know we shouldn’t use the same password across multiple accounts (no matter how strong that password is), we can customize the password per account. For example, we have our strong password based on the phrase “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall” and want to use it across Amazon, Google, and Netflix:

AMZn+humTdumt$@t0nAwa11 HumTdumt$@t0nAwa11@gOoGL HumTdumt$@t0nAwa114netFLX

Next level security

Sometimes strong passwords you can remember are not enough. Enter two-factor authentication, which requires you to have access to your phone (or another device like an RSA token, etc.), in addition to your username and password. Many sites and services support two-factor authentication as an additional layer of security. Look for the option when setting up your account or afterwards in the account settings where the password is updated. Logging into a site using two-factor authentication requires you to enter your username and password and then a code you’ll find on your phone (either via an app or SMS message) or other device like an RSA token.

With these guidelines in place, you’re now ready to create and maintain strong passwords for all your accounts.

How do I create a strong and secure password?

To improve the security of your online accounts we recommend that you follow a few key steps when creating passwords for anything you access online.

We recommend you choose a password that is a minimum of 8 characters, and consists of uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers. We also don’t recommend you use full words. All of these steps make it very difficult for automated programs and hackers to guess your password.

The longer the password is, the less likely it is that someone else will be able to guess it or otherwise find out what it is.

Top Password Security tips

Do not reuse passwords between websites Do not reuse passwords between websites

Do not reuse passwords between websites Do not reuse passwords between websites

It’s very tempting to use the same password you use for one online account with another website, but it is absolutely critical in this day and age that you do not fall into this habit.

Hackers know that a great deal of people use the same (or similar) passwords for most of the accounts they use online, so when they get hold of a password for one account, they will often use an automated process to try and login to as many online services as they can with that password.

In that scenario, if your email account is compromised and you use the same password for an online shopping website, as well as your social network profile and your online bank – the hacker will be able to login to all of those services.

The problem with ensuring that you do not reuse passwords across different websites is of course that you may find it difficult to remember all your passwords. We recommend using a secure reputable password manager to hold your passwords for you – see 'Use a password manager' below to learn more.

Use strong passwords Use strong passwords

Use strong passwords Use strong passwords

Strong passwords use a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and if possible special characters. This makes it very difficult for automated programs and hackers to guess your password. Check out the 'Understand how accounts become compromised' section to understand how account passwords are often guessed.

Do not use real words in your password. Hackers will often use an automated system to attempt to use dictionary words as your password, so if your password consists of a dictionary word – there’s a good chance they’d be able to login and compromise your account.

A good way of securing your password is to substitute some of the letters in your password for numbers. For example, instead of writing the letter 'S', you could use the number 5, which looks very similar. The same applies for other letter and number combinations.

Never share your passwords with anyone Never share your passwords with anyone

Never share your passwords with anyone Never share your passwords with anyone

It may sound like a basic point, but it’s one of the most important. Never share your password with anyone. You may inherently trust that person, but you have no guarantee that they follow adequate security precautions and you can therefore not be certain of the security of the password that you have shared.

For example, if you provide your password to someone who enters it into a computer that is infected with malware, or they write it into a book of passwords that they keep – your defences to online fraud are instantly weakened.

This includes speaking to professionals like Technical Support Agents, or your computer engineer.

Change your passwords regularly Change your passwords regularly

Change your passwords regularly Change your passwords regularly

It is good practice to regularly change the passwords you use online, even if you use strong, unique passwords and don’t have any reason to believe your account is compromised.

Online accounts can be compromised (sometimes through no fault of your own) and hackers may just monitor your online accounts – such as your email address, waiting for something valuable to appear, such as a password reset email for your online bank.

There may be no visible symptoms that your account has been compromised, so changing your password regularly is a good way of minimising the risk of this happening.

It’s up to you how often you change your passwords, but it's generally a good idea to change them every few months.

Use a password manager Use a password manager

Use a password manager Use a password manager

Password managers are software applications that store your login information for all the websites you use and help you log into them automatically. They encrypt your password database with a master password – the master password is the only one you have to remember.

This allows you to have strong, unique passwords for all your online accounts – meaning you don’t have to remember them.

When using a password manager, it is vital that you use a completely unique and very complex master password, and use two-factor authentication where possible. If your password manager’s master password is obtained by a third party, they could then gain access to all of your online accounts from there.

Be sure to use a reputable password manager by researching and reading user reviews before downloading/installing.

Review your password recovery questions Review your password recovery questions

Review your password recovery questions Review your password recovery questions

Most online services have password recovery options that can be used to regain access to your account if you forget the password for it. These questions normally ask for things like your favourite football team or your mother’s maiden name.

Ensure that you make these questions and answers as hard as possible to guess and if possible, select questions that only you will be able to answer.