What Are Good Words for Passwords?

by Aaron Charles

Turns out the best words for passwords aren't necessarily words at all, but are aberrations of words mixed with various symbols and numbers -- anything that can't be guessed easily. And this principle applies really to anyone, whether in the business world or not. However, there's at least one password that's popped up in the business world that you should avoid.


The longer the word or phrase, the harder it is for password-cracking programs to guess your password. The Federal Communications Commission recommends choosing a word or phrase that's at least six characters long. However, reps from companies like Microsoft and Google recommend that you have at least eight characters in your password. Although, as mentioned, it's important to get out of the mindset that your password is actually a word, since this makes your password and privacy the potential victims of what are called "dictionary attacks" -- attempting to crack people's passwords by running through a list of common words.


This adds weight to the advice to be complex, odd and strange with your password choices. This is where the power of abbreviation comes into play. For example, say you were thinking of using the word "entrepreneur" for your business email account. It's over eight characters, so that's good. But it's a common word pulled right from the dictionary. If you abbreviated the word, though, by doing something like removing the "r's," then you have this: "entepeneu." It's still more than eight characters, but it's more strange -- and less likely to be guessed.


To take things even further, incorporate special symbols and numbers into your words, and use both uppercase and lowercase letters. So, to use the "entrepreneur" example again, by eliminating the "r's," and substituting the "e's" with "3's," then you have "3nt3p3n3u" -- an especially complex password from what used to be an easily-surmised word from the dictionary. And by capitalizing some of the letters and adding a symbol, such as "@" or "$," you make the password even more complex. Also, as mentioned, using the same techniques you can use more than word to make a short phrase.


There are words and phrases to avoid -- with some of them being "iloveyou," "letmein" or "abc123." But here, too, if you apply the aforementioned methods for making a password more complex, you'll have that much stronger of a password. There's one combination, though, that you should surely avoid. Numerous tech and business publications reported in 2012 how the security firm Trustwave determined that one of the worst passwords a business can use is "Password1." Yes, it's more than eight characters, has a combination of letters and a number as well as of uppercase and lowercase letters. But it's mostly unoriginal -- and banality is the bane of password security.

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