Thursday, March 13, 2014

Let OS X Create Passwords

If you’re looking for a memorable yet secure password (that is, one involving numbers, capital letters, and symbols), you can let OS X do the hard work, as follows:

1. Open Keychain Access, which is the application in OS X that handles password and certificate security. You’ll find it in the Utilities folder of the Applications view in Finder.

2. Once the app has started, click File→New Password Item. Don’t worry— we’re not actually going to create a new item for the keychain. Instead, we’re simply going to make use of its password tool.

3. In the dialog box that slides into view, click the small key icon alongside the Password textbox. This will open the Password Assistant, which is what we’re interested in.

4. In the Password Assistant dialog box, ensure the Type drop-down list is set to Memorable. Then look in the suggestion box for the password that’s been created for you. To generate another, once again select Memorable from the drop-down list.

5. The Length slider lets you create longer passwords, and it’s wise to slide this a little to the right. The green Quality bar shows how secure the password is, which is to say how theoretically easy it is to crack. However, a password of twelve letters is normally considered extremely strong within the wider security community, even if it means the green bar doesn’t entirely fill.

Once you’re happy, you should attempt to learn the password. This can be done by saying it out loud ten to twenty times or by typing it into a blank document the same number of times so that you learn it by rote.
You can close Password Assistant and then click the Cancel button to close the Keychain Access dialog box. You can then quit Keychain Access.