Cybersecurity For Dummies

Chapter 7

Passwords

IN THIS CHAPTER

Selecting passwords

Discovering how often you need to change passwords — or not

Storing passwords

Finding alternatives to passwords

Most people alive today are familiar with the concept of passwords and with their use in the realm of cybersecurity. Yet, there are so many misconceptions about passwords, and misinformation about them has spread like wildfire, often leading to people undermining their own security with poor password practices.

In this chapter, you discover some best practices vis-à-vis passwords. These practices should help you both maximize your own security and maintain reasonable ease of use.

Passwords: The Primary Form of Authentication

Password authentication refers to the process of verifying the identity of a user (whether human or computer process) by asking that user to supply a password — that is, a previously-agreed-upon secret piece of information — that ostensibly the party authenticating would only know if he or she were truly the party who it claimed to be. While the term password implies that the information ...