Password Policy

Written by Alistair McDonald


Modern corporate life means due dilegence, adhering to legislation, and many other distractions fromrepparttar core business of an organisation. Where computers are concerned, there is potential for abuse of corporate systems, infection of corporate systems with viruses, trojans and other malware, and damage to reputation through hacking and improper use of resources by employees.

Every organization should have policies on use of computers. These should include:

An acceptable use policy, which describes howrepparttar 107609 firm’s computers can be used An email policy, which defines how email can be used A password policy, whererepparttar 107610 use of passwords is defined The last item may be unfamiliar to many, however, passwords can berepparttar 107611 weak point in an organization's security. They are often abused, decreasing their strengths. It is worth educating users and definingrepparttar 107612 use of passwords with a formal policy. The users should readrepparttar 107613 policy, understand it, and adhere to it. It's important thatrepparttar 107614 policy explains whatrepparttar 107615 issues are, otherwise it may be misinterpreted.

Rule 0: The password policy should be part of every employee's Terms and Conditions. So, what's wrong with passwords? Typically, passwords are badly chosen. As a result, they can be guessed easily and quickly. They are also more vulnerable to brute-force attacks, where every possible password combination is tried.

Choosing a good password is a skill, but it's an easily learned one. The first thing is to not choose a very bad password. Firstly, Passwords should not be a simple dictionary word or name - hacker tools often include basic dictionaries, and these words will be tested first. People's names, automobile models, sports teams, and many other names are all used in passwords, and they are all candidates for hackers to break quickly. When a hacker is attempting to break a password, his tools will test all of his dictionary of words and names, and also use simple substitutions such as changingrepparttar 107616 letter "I" for a number 1, "O" for zero, and so on. They may also append a number torepparttar 107617 end ofrepparttar 107618 world.

Rule 1: Never base a password on a single word. The next step in choosing a good password is to make it long. A password should be at least eight characters, and ideally 12 or more. The longer a password,repparttar 107619 less chance of a hacker breaking it quickly. To connotate two words will create a longer word, but hacker tools will search for this, and it is better to misspell one or both ofrepparttar 107620 words, so a straight dictionary approach will not work. If you do choose to use this approach, DO NOT use two words that someone will associate with you - choose them at random from a newspaper, for example.

Using both upper and lower case will help too, ifrepparttar 107621 application supports it, some do not. If it does, then userepparttar 107622 upper and lower case at random, not just atrepparttar 107623 start ofrepparttar 107624 password, again, this will help.

The last tool I'm going to discuss for password security is adding numbers and punctuation marks torepparttar 107625 password. Knock outrepparttar 107626 occasional letter and replace it with a number or a punctuation mark. Some punctuation marks may not be allowed in some applications, it's best to check, or to avoid greater than ">", less than "<",repparttar 107627 quotation marks """, "'" and "`", andrepparttar 107628 semicolon and ampersand. I encourage you to try any unusual symbols on your keyboard, for example"¬".

Expert Guide to DVD Camcorders

Written by Kenny Hemphill


Thinking about a mini DVD camcorder? You're not alone, it's a rapidly growing sector ofrepparttar camcorder market, with Hitachi, Sony and Panasonic all making more than one mini dvd camcorder.

These camcorders differ from regular digital video cameras in one important way - they record video onto mini DVD discs, rather than DV tape. This has a number of advantages. DVD discs are more robust than tape and won't get chewed up inrepparttar 107608 camera. Although this is thankfully a rare occurance, it scares me every time I here a strange noise coming from my camcorder, so it's with bearing in mind.

The second advantage is that DVD discs are random access, compared to tape on which everything is recorded sequentially. This means that there's no need to rewind and fast forward to findrepparttar 107609 clip you're after, just select it fromrepparttar 107610 menu. Some cameras even allow you to perform basic editing functions on-camera. An additional side-benefit is that a mini DVD camcorder doesn't have tape heads to get worn or dirty as happens in regular mini DVD cameras.

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