The Best Password Guide | Stephen Ajulu · IT Professional, Writer, Founder & Consultant

Hi, how are you? Today i would like to update a post i did a few years ago and so here we are.

First before i start the post, there will be links down below for those interested in protecting themselves, families, businesses and their data from hackers. If you are in a hurry take note of those marked “VERY IMPORTANT” as those will shed more light and are more in depth and short. But i would rather you check all the links as each has important information and how to’s that others don’t have. Technology is rapidly changing and the cyberspace is becoming less and less secure. I offer on this blog a chance for all to regain their privacy, security and anonymity. So Subscribe. I think the subscription will either pop up unless you have an ad blocker(that is great. You should have one) If you do have an ad blocker check the one on your right, if my calculations are correct it should be right there →→→ or lower or higher but not too far. Anyway let’s proceed and don’t forget to check out the links ↓↓↓↓.

To begin check out the top 20 most used passwords in the world.

123456
password
12345678
qwerty
12345
123456789
passw0rd
1234567
welcome
1234567890
abc123
111111
monkey
p455w0rd
dr0w554p
admin
123qwe
iloveyou
!@#$%^&*
7777777

To see more, click here to find the wordlists .

And this is no laughing matter, for hackers these passwords take a minute or even seconds to crack, and not forgetting, that this list is on the internet and in numbers, hackers love to search for these kind of lists to build their attack.

Hackers usually search the internet for leaked passwords to create a wordlist, like the one above. Then when they choose a target and check if the target has any of those leaked passwords. Then in a few minutes, the are in. They can do anything they like. Even using your email for malicious purposes like social engineering, spreading viruses and many more. Recently it was proven that a hacker with a powerful laptop(in tech terms Core i5, 8 GB Ram and 2 GB Graphics card) can crack a 8 character password in about 3 hours, and that’s if you don’t have a password that is already in the internet openly. If your password does exist in these wordlist then it takes less than 3 minutes. And you should know a hacker can be very patient if he/she is focused on cracking the password.

Now, the question is how do i create strong passwords that will make a hacker to destroy his machine after weeks of trying the combinations?

Well, the new password standard is 20 characters. And to be on the best side 27. Now this is not a word based password, it either needs to be alphanumeric or a paraphrase e.g i.<3.my.kitty.r0zzie.2o17 – now this is a paraphrase, it is comprised of the alphabet, numbers and punctuation marks. Note that, this password is strong enough and is 25 characters. This will take an extremely powerful system and a long time to crack this, and it might take months, that’s a lot of electricity bills and user time, keeping the computer running 24/7.

So to summarize. You now know the recommended standard is 20 characters but kindly for my sake make it 27. As technology keeps on advancing. A point to note NEVER use a password more than once and NEVER reveal your password to anyone even google themselves or whatever site/platform you are using. Due to the ever advancing “Social Engineering” techniques, where people are able to mask themselves as Google telling you, you have been hacked, and that they need your email address and password, these are usually lies. Since social engineering is basically using human stupidity, emotions and the urge of correction against you (look i didn’t come up with this definition, so if something like this happened to you, just know am not calling anyone stupid!) an example is when you tell someone 2+2=5, they will tell you no its 4, the same way hackers will use the same trick to get real data from you seeing that when they tell you something close to the truth about you eg “Do you live in South B” then you tell them “No i live in South c in Mugoya Estate” )just based on this little info and the tonation of your voice, determine whether you are a man or woman, they build a wordlist with all female/male names in existence plus your location and afew things they can find in your social media account like birthdays, favorite colors, food, movie and music. I will dwell in this topic later on as its a big one. And a point of advice, dont overshare in social media sites, there could be someone gathering your data, planning to hack any and all your accounts.

Password Creation Requirements

More than 10 alphabets
5 or more numbers
5 or more characters e.g . , / ” : < = – * ( % _|}?[+&^#$!@

Now i know remembering is an issue and science proves that the human brain wasn’t built for remembrance and as such, i recommend a password manager like LastPass or Dashlane or KeePass or my personal favorite Bitwarden . Which can store all your passwords with a master password(Which should be more than 27 characters long and unique). They have android and desktop platform. And apart from these they also have extensions for all of the popular browsers Google Chrome , Mozilla Firefox and Opera Browser .

And turn on Two/three factor Authentication to prevent hacking attempts, basically what this does is to link your account with a password and your phone, so each time you log in, you will need to enter your username/email and password then confirm through a code sent to your phone, to determine whether or not you are the account owner.

You will also want to check this website out: haveibeenpwned . It helps one check if their accounts, emails or passwords have been exposed, cracked or owned.

Subscribe to the blog for more posts on security, privacy and anonymity.

You can go check out these posts to better protect yourself, family and friends from data insecurity, identity theft, breaches, data leaks, data theft, data manipulation and more.

Basic Data Security for Businesses and Individuals VERY IMPORTANT!

How & Why Big Tech Want’s to Ditch Passwords VERY IMPORTANT! x2

ProtonVPN: The World’s First Free Open Source VPN

Data, The New Gold VERY IMPORTANT!

Privacy, Security and Anonymity: The Wonderful 3s VERY IMPORTANT!

Privacy, Security and Anonymity Mini Guide

Privacy Android Apps

Kenya’s Cyber Insecurity

Official Android Tor Browser

Most Common Hacking Techniques and How to Protect Yourself

Metadata: Data about Data and Social Media VERY IMPORTANT

Tor, Proxychains and VPNs