#78 posted on Sun May 30 00:00:00 2010

How to generate an easy to remember unique password for each site?

Here is a tip I've wanted to share for a while now. A tip that has made my online life a whole lot easier.

A question: How many passwords do you use on all the websites that you visit? Two, three, four? Or just one for all? With tens or even hundreds of websites where one needs to register as an active net user it becomes impossible to remember a distinct password for all the sites, especially if you only visit some sites maybe once or twice a year, if even that. But that registration form needs a password, so you have to type one in. A common huge security risk is to use a collection of passwords on all sites. This way you will always manage to log in by trying your most usual passwords. I have been using this tactic for ages, having maybe 5 different passwords I have been using.

Then it happens, one of your passwords is exposed in plain text for example by a security exploit to anyone for grabs. Passwords are also compromised by badly designed sites that send them to you upon registration or a "forgot my password" link. Whatever happens, all the sites you use that password for are open for someone else to login with your account. And what if you don't even remember what sites are using a particular password? All of them need to be changed, which is difficult if you don't even know all the sites you have used the password on.

Solutions are numerous, password managers being a popular one. However the problem with these is that they are restricted to either using a particular browser, service or local database (like KeePass, for example). While handy tools, they are slow to use for sites that are not visited often. So here is a tip I found came across some time ago that made all this simple and effective. I couldn't find the original source of the tip, but I'm quite sure it was from Lifehacker.

Generate a password you can remember that has at least 5 letters. Apply the general rules, ie include some capital letters and numbers and make sure it is NOT a dictionary word.

Create a rule to generate 3 letters from the URL of the website. Do not make it too simple, don't for example use the first 3 or last 3 etc. Something like the first, the last and the second of the second (if any) word.

For extra security and variety add to the end the content of another rule, for example a number containing the length of the longest word.

Memorize the generated password and the rules. Save them in a password manager if you are the type of person that saves passwords for all sites, this way if you forget either part of the rule you can check them later from there.

When registering to a site you can now generate yourself a decent security, but easily remembered distinct password for all sites. All sites have an unique URL and this makes each password unique. And unless your rules are something too simple like the last 3 letters of the URL, an exposed password is unlikely to give out our rule (unless someone knows you are using this method like anyone will now know of me).

Of course these are just examples of what kind of rules could be created to create distinct passwords for web sites. Sure made my struggle with all the password managing a lot easier.

[ tips // security // internet ]