The "To Keep Up" Wiki

The idea for this started when I heard that someone had someone access their Facebook page. It's possible this happened because Facebook passwords were stolen but it's also that the password was guessed. Let's explore ways that passwords are compromised and how to protect your passwords without causing unnecessary effort on your part.

And is there a way to store all of your account and login information, securely, and easy to access?

Much from How to hack like a pro

• Guessing
  • Dictionary attack
  • Brute Force (try all combinations in order)
  • Commonly used/easy guess passwords (password123 Password123 password ilovejohn)
  • Commonly used passwords with simple changes(p@ssw0rd !l0v3j0hn)
• The password is easy to get
  • written down
  • watching over shoulder
• Password cracking software (ophcrack, cain and able, THC-Hydra, Brutus)
• The password is stolen from a company

How long does it take to crack a password? (From link)

You should assume that the attacker knows a lot about you: e.g., Facebook. Guessable things like the following have no business being in your password (or as one the answer to any of your recovery questions:

• Your: name, birthday, anniversary, social security number, etc
• Name, birthday, etc of your parents, friends, spouse, dogs, etc
• Sequences like 12345
• Any of the above but combined – adding guessable things together does not make them un-guessable
• Passwords you've used before, they've probably already been breached

• Change it often
• Make it hard to guess - upper and lower chars, digits, special chars. 12 or 13 characters long.
• Watch the news for breaches and change password [This spelling correction for breach courtesy of Carol Levine)

If a human is going to guess the password then make it unhuman. Consider: a password “safe”. Here are some free alternatives. From Tech Radar, The best free password manager 2019
Also see PC Magazine's picks

All offer unlimited login and text note storage in a secure vault protected by your master password, and can generate (and store) strong passwords.

You enter your email address and this site (https://haveibeenpwned.com/) will tell you if your email address has been picked up during a data breach and which sites. Note that it also suggests using a paid password manager system; check my advice on password managers above.

I use a combination of KeePass on my Mac, PC, and iPhone to access, create, maintain passwords and related information in a secure password safe (encrypted file). I store and access the safe using iCloud and Dropbox.

Note that KeePass has different applications you can use to access the password safe, as they differ by device.

While I started using Dropbox as you could access your free 5GB from any number of devices, they have restricted its use to 3 devices unless you pay. Now I am using iCloud to hold the password safe as there is no limit on number of devices.

If you do not want to use the cloud (Internet storage) to save your password crypt, you can store it on your computer and use a USB stick to copy it from machine to machine and as a backup.

• KeePassXC
• Dropbox, iCloud

• Strongbox (MiniKeePass)
• iCloud

• KeePass2 (download directly from https://keepass.info)
• Dropbox or iCloud

• There are other ports of KeePass for Mac OS X, iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows 10, Chromebook, Blackberry, etc. Visit the KeePass site and choose Download.

• While some apps store passwords in their space, this means it's a SPOF²⁾
• KeePass lets you decide where to store it – on your computer, on USB stick, cloud storage of your choice – and this provides some level of security you control