Passwords & Internet Addresses Journal For Dummies

Chapter 2

What's the Secret Password?

In This Chapter

• Understanding password vulnerabilities
• Picking a quality password
• Using encryption
• Storing and remembering your passwords

Some computers already allow you to access your information with fingerprints and other biometric scanners. However, those methods usually work for hardware only. If you want to get anything done on the Internet, you need passwords — many, many, many passwords. This chapter takes a look at all of those passwords (and security questions, as well) and what you can do to make them less hackable.

Hackable doesn't just refer to evil computer geniuses working their way into your computer to ferret out your most important data. The term also refers to far more common social engineering, in which people pair knowledge about you with other techniques to guess or obtain your passwords.

Choosing and Protecting Passwords

When you set up an e-mail account — or any account — on the Internet, you have to set a password, which is the keyword you type in to confirm your sign-in along with your user ID. Passwords are not only used in e-mail, but also on almost every website you become a member of, and with many apps and devices. ...