Also, you should always use different passwords on different websites. This is to avoid that a hacker can log in to several different web services you use if your password is leaked.
Now researchers at Microsoft claim that very few users follow this advice in practice. A recent hacker attack on Rockyou that led to the leak of 32 million passwords showed that a majority of the passwords were extremely simple.
Many users also choose to use a password manager, something that Microsoft researchers believe is a bad solution. The problem with password managers is that they offer a place where all passwords are stored. A report released recently also shows that there are major security holes in many of these password managers.
According to the researchers, there is a better way to manage their passwords. Their solution is that you should use simple passwords that you can remember on services that do not contain any important or sensitive information.
The reason is that since most people don’t use complex and hard-to-crack passwords anyway, it’s better to distinguish between the services where you use simple and complex passwords.
By using simple passwords on those services that do not contain any sensitive information, Microsoft researchers claim that users can instead learn to remember the complicated passwords on the few services where it is needed.
The researchers conclude their report by saying that it has not yet been determined whether their method is superior to the other options, but more research will be conducted to find out.
IDG News