So, with the whole Heartbleed scare, I spent some time overhauling my password practices—because like many others, I used the same password for almost everything rather than having something unique for each site. I decided to use a password manager to keep track of all of the sites I log into (and after reading reviews chose LastPass); however, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of randomly generated passwords (a typical feature of password managers). I wanted to know what my password was so that if it wasn't convenient to look it up in my password manager, I was covered.
You may know that long passwords are more difficult to crack than short ones, and that a phrase is easier to remember than a series of random numbers and letters. A friend shared with me that she uses a series of song lyrics based on the type of site she is logging into. It occurred to me that made a great idea for a password system.
If you have a song lyric--or any phrase really-as your password, then you have the option of changing one portion of it based on the site you are on. For example, your base password could be…
throwupyourrawkfist
But you might make it unique for each site by adding a prefix or suffix unique to the site, for example:
throwupyourrawkfist+FB
throwupyourrawkfist+TW
Of course, it doesn't have to be a nod to TFK with a suffix. It can be whatever format you create for yourself. And, the more obscure the phrase the better. The idea of PassPhrases has been around for a while and it wouldn't take much to search for popular ones, but obscure song lyrics? I'm pretty sure that most of us have a favorite.
