This month’s SANS Ouch! (Vol.7 No. 2) newsletter asks the question “What is your Password IQ?”
I’m reprinting the questions (with permission) in this post, and will post the answers in a subsequent post to let you rate your own password knowledge.
What’s your Password IQ?
1. How often should you change your password?
a) Every 30 days
b) Every 60 days
c) Every 90 days
d) When IT tells you to
2. One of your co-workers is working on a critical report this weekend
and needs access to some of your files. How should you give her your
password?
a) Send it in an email message
b) Call her on the phone and tell her the password
c) Don’t give it to her or anybody else
d) Write it on a piece of paper, seal it in an envelope, and mail it to
her
3. What is the most common (and so the weakest) password used in 2009?
a) password
b) 123456
c) qwerty
d) abc123
4. What characters should you use in a password to make it strong?
a) Letters only
b) Numbers only
c) Letters and punctuation
d) All of the above
5. How long should a strong password be?
a) Five characters
b) Eight characters
c) As long as possible
d) Size doesn’t matter
6. Now that you are an expert, choose the strongest password from this list:
a) Mickey.Mouse
b) M1ck3y.m0u53
c) 3.1416**
d) Ad@46-Hiz
e) Aristotle
The answers to this quiz are available here.
The full SANS Ouch! newsletter, and others, are available at the SANS website.
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