Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ Take Control of Security for Mac Users, Chapter 5: Improve Your Passwords Joe Kissell This article is a pre-release chapter in the upcoming 'Take Control of Security for Mac users,' by Joe Kissell, scheduled for public release later in 2015. Apart from [1]Chapter 1: Introducing Mac Security, and [2]Chapter 2: Learn Security Basics, these chapters are available only to [3]TidBITS members; see [4]'Take Control of Security for Mac Users' Streaming in TidBITS for details. __________________________________________________________________ Chapter 5: Improve Your Passwords Whether you're talking about your Mac's user account, your Wi-Fi router, any of the zillions of Web sites where you might have an account, or countless other services, passwords are nearly always a factor in digital security. They are also nearly always the weakest link. If the only thing standing between a random visitor and your data is your password, that password had better be pretty darn strong. Unfortunately, most people use lousy passwords that are easily guessed or broken, for the simple reason that they're convenient to remember and type. And that's a real pity'your Mac (including built-in software like Safari and Mail) supports excellent, heavy-duty security methods, but if you pick a terrible password, it's like using a fantastic lock but then hiding your key under the doormat. So, for the various ways in which your Mac itself uses passwords, as well as for the devices and services to which you connect with your Mac, one of the most crucial steps you can take to improve your security is to improve your passwords. The rest of this 3,272-word article is currently restricted to paid TidBITS members. If you'd like to support our work and [5]become a paid member, it's an easy process and we'll throw in some additional perks. If you are a paid TidBITS member, you can read the rest of this article by logging into your account. Clicking My Account > Login at the left. [6]Contact us if you have problems. References 1. http://tidbits.com/article/15376 2. http://tidbits.com/article/15377 3. http://tidbits.com/member_benefits.html 4. http://tidbits.com/article/15375 5. file://localhost/member_benefits.html 6. mailto:ace@tidbits.com .