How to Create Secure Passwords

While it feels as though security breaches and hackers pose a constant threat to you, your computer, and your personal information, one barrier to infiltration that is in your complete control is how securely you design your passwords. There are a few tips and tricks to crafting the ideal, impenetrable password, and they may not be what you think. Password No No’s

Everyone knows one of the rules to creating a good password is to combine letter and numbers, right? So you create a password with your last name and perhaps your birthdate, something like Smith0678. This is a huge no no. Generally, using your name as a password can be guessed tremendously easily, and including personal information such as birthday, year of birth, or even address number is a bad idea. This information can easily be guessed or found by potential hackers or infiltration systems. You may not even be safe using the name of a favourite pet, as there is potential this information could be found out online, perhaps via social media. When designing a password, steer clear of information that is too close and personal to you, your life, and your family.

It’s also not a great idea to use just a single word for your password, no matter how random it seems. Certain infiltration software uses a dictionary matching system to guess passwords. So even if your password is “Antidisestablishmentarianism”, the program would likely still stumble upon it, making you vulnerable to a threat.

Elements of a Good Password

Yes, strong passwords should contain letters and numbers, but it is often still too easy to hack a password when it incorporates a recognisable word. The best passwords are a string of letters, numbers, and characters that do not necessarily make sense to the untrained eye. A long, randomised password is definitely very secure, but may be difficult for a user to memorise. For this reason, many experts suggest creating an acronym, using a sentence you will remember. For example, “This Is My Password and I Like Coffee.” This sentence would result in TIMPAILC. Make the password even stronger by making only some of the letters capitalised, and including a non-numeric symbol. A good choice would be $TiMPAiLC%. This is not a recognisable word that could be guessed by a hacker, but it is easy for you to remember a silly sentence/

Tips for Creating the Right Password

There are many options when it comes to being clever with password creation. If you are including a common word in the password, it is advisable to misspell it in some way. Or, you can replace on of the letters with a number that makes sense to you, but is likely not to be guessed by a hacker, such as the word Example: 3XAMPL3. And of course, boost that with a character! (*&%!$#@)

One great idea is to create a template of sorts that you use for all your different passwords, with a changeable part that you can customise for each website. This might be something like

1509coffeemashine_

With such variants as

1509coffeemashine_bankaccount$ 1509coffeemashine_fac3book

Again, what is strong in these passwords is the combination of numbers, misspelled words, characters, and unusual word choices.

Variety is Key

As we just saw, strong passwords have a variety of factors which help keep them diverse and extremely difficult to guess. You should strive for variety within your passwords and amongst all of your passwords, which should definitely each be unique. If you utilise an identical password for all your login details, you are extremely susceptible to infiltration, and giving a potential hacker access to all of your information!

Being creative and clever will ensure you are designing excellent passwords. Would you believe the most commonly used password is “password”? This is a terrible way to make your secure data basically open source. Other common passwords include “admin”, “blank”, and abc1234. Don’t fall prey to these simplistic options, even if they are the easiest to remember. Come up with something unique to you, and your information will be much, much safer.

Utilising Password Apps or Generators

If you do have trouble remembering your many passwords, you can research some apps that store all your password information for you. This is a far better option than storing your login details on your phone or in an email. If someone hacks you, you may be giving them even more information. A password app, such as Keeper, can hold your password info in a securely encrypted center, protecting it for you. This is a great option if you have countless passwords to keep track of. Other apps and programs have password generators, so they’ll help you design unique and extremely secure randomised passwords. This might be the answer for you if the creative bug just isn’t biting.

The Importance of Established Processes

 No matter the type of company or organisation, established processes are vital to a smoothly functioning, successful business. Established processes--the recorded processes necessary to fulfilling each workplace task-- are important because they provide a standard for workplace practices. When employees follow the protocol of established processes, it is easier to spot an error when one occurs. Good established processes--ones that function well and promote good business--create a better environment for all, employees and customers alike.

Too often, the blame for problems or inefficiencies in the workplace tends to fall on the shoulders of individuals within the company. It frequently becomes easier to blame people than to pinpoint the problem within the functioning of the business as a whole. This type of misappointed blame, however, tends to disappear in a work environment bolstered by good established processes. If difficulties arise in a certain area of your business, you can look to established processes to source out the issue and make alterations for the better.

It really is all about simplicity and flow. When positive changes are made in the workplace, even subtle ones, the behaviour of the employees tends to grow more favorable in that arena. If some processes become simplified, it may be easier to employees to perform certain tasks correctly and without error. A good flow also produces happier, more energised employees--ones who are not bogged down by an overload of too many tasks. Good established processes distribute work evenly, allowing employees more time to perform quality work on their assigned tasks.

As an ISO9001 training organisation, we at IIT drive a lot of our training service

activities around established processes. Since we know the necessity of these essential work practices, we utilise them when training. We believe in well-documented step-by-step processes that can be understood and then repeated. Not only do we believe in established processes within the workplace, but we adhere to them for training practices as well. The establishment of a strong flow with clear cut processes, steps, and rules is the best way for a business to function at optimal efficiency.

Is the Need for Instructor-Led Training Declining?

As the world is increasingly online and technology continues to grow at an enormous rate, one must wonder if the need for instructor-led training is in decline? This may seem particularly true for the world of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) where the rate of change makes it incredibly difficult to stay current. According to recent research, the need for instructor-led training is not declining, but, certainly changing with instructor-led online and instructor-led remote now adding to the mix. Here at IIT we believe an ideal training solution is achieved when we consider a blend of content delivery options for our trainees. The content delivery options need to look carefully at what the training intervention is trying to achieve in terms of skills and knowledge objectives. When setting up training for many of our clients, we often hear requests for the training to take place completely self-paced online, but is this the most effective solution. Often these requests are based purely on a commercial basis (develop the e-learning package just once and everyone can use it type approach), sometimes it is trying to minimise being away from the work environment, and numerous other reasons. We feel that self-paced online training can function very effectively when mapped carefully to a specific outcome and learning 'chunk'. Ideally self-paced (online and print) should be part of a total training blend. Purely self-paced online/print training lacks the interactive nature of an instructor-led program, and can be stifled by the problematic distraction of ongoing work as often it is not scheduled in timing blocks as normal training sessions are. Under situations where content of online material is regularly changing the costs of creating and maintaining an exceptional and effective e-learning package are also extremely high. With good audio and video content development time can be in the order of 240 hours for each hour of content! And, no, just converting a standard PowerPoint type slide show and running it in a Learning Management System (LMS) environment is generally not a well thought-out online learning solution! Self-paced requires design on the front-end interface, careful scripting or audio, video and text to maintain engagement, (and stop the quick click-through of content), completion markers and so on. Blended programs, with content delivery mechanisms (qualified instructors, self-paced online, remote etc), are what we feel provide the best training solution to achieve real learning outcomes.

The American Society for Training and Development (the world's largest professional association dedicated to the training and development field) recently produced their 2013 annual 'State of the Industry Report'--a review of workplace learning and development trends. This report gives us some great insights. In 2013, live instructor-led forums (consisting of classroom, online, and remote) was approximately 70% of all training programs, with approximately 60% taking place in a live classroom setting. Self-directed training modules, whether online or in print, accounted for only 28% of total training programs. The report also identifies a trend in instructor-led online delivery. In 2012 instructor-led online accounted for 10% of training content available, growing from 5% in 2008. Statistics such as these show that content delivery formats may be changing, we may be getting more technologically savvy, but we still depend on the guidance of the exceptional instructor.