Guidance on choosing a strong password

Passwords can be insecure for a variety of reasons, including :

• The password is too short.
• The password is some combination of your username.
• The password is a word in a dictionary (any language).
• The password is only a slight variation on a word.

A good password will contain :

• Upper AND lower case letters.
• At least one punctuation character. For DICE, permitted punctuation characters are: ! " $ % ^ & * ( ) ~ @ : } { [ ] ? > < / . , \ |
• At least one numerical character.

A good method of creating a password which is both difficult to crack and easy to remember is to start with a sentence and convert it.

e.g. is Peter's snake bigger than Linda's garden hose?

i - is
P - Peter's
5 - snake
> - bigger than
L - Linda's
g - garden
h - hose
? - ?

to give the password : iP5>Lgh?