In the last couple of lectures, we saw the account management features of the user maintenance account
and all those management things related to account.
But in this lecture, we'll start with password management, why it is really important to manage the
password only guidelines for different passwords, like any other aspect of network security passwords
must be managed.
And doing that involves ensuring that all the accounts follow security guidelines so that the bad guys
cannot easily guess or grab them.
You've also got to implement certain features of a network operating system to prevent unauthorized
access to your system.
The fundamental rule when it comes to password is a password is a combination of alphanumeric and special
characters.
That's easy for you to remember, but really hard for someone else to address.
Now, like server account names, they should never be written down on anything that is then put into
your desk or stuck on your computer.
Do not write your password on a stick in order to post it and just pasted in front of your desktop just
because you cannot remember.
No, that is very wrong.
You should remember your password and that is why you should keep your password such that you should
be able to remember it.
Now, unfortunately, this guideline is only followed in a perfect world, users invariably try to make
things easy on themselves by choosing passwords that are so simple to guess that someone would have
to be seriously mentally challenged not to be able to.
I had a friend whose name was Mike and he was born in the nineteen seventy six.
Now, what Mike did was basically I was able to hack into the system, not actually hack.
I just tried to, you know, try to do three attempts and I was successful on the third attempt.
Now what he did is he took his first name, Mike, and he added, add the symbol, the one that we use
in the email address.
And then he added the last two digits of his birth year, which means Mike Adulate.
Seventy six.
So that was very easy.
Please do not tend to keep such passwords because you never know, because nowadays your information
is available all over the Internet.
Your birth date is available on Facebook, your username, your user IDs are available on LinkedIn,
Instagram, so people can easily access your password.
So make sure that you keep a password which is difficult to crack.
Now, strong passwords should be at least eight characters.
Now, the more the characters, the good it is for you.
But this shouldn't exceed more than 15 characters so that if you exceed more than 15 characters, it
will be very difficult for you to remember.
You absolutely must specify a minimum level for passwords because a short password is easily correct.
If a password is worth of four Ilford characters that are to this to four combinations of those characters
are four to four at the max so that it can be easily cracked.
Now, the upper limit depends on the capabilities of an of your operating system and the ability of
your users to remember the complex password.
So let's have a weak list for passwords.
Never use them and then we'll include the proper names, never include pet names, your spouse's name,
children's name, your mother's name, your father's name and important date and do not include the
username and your password.
Also try to avoid color, occupation, company name in your password and any of the above with a leading
number, any of the above with a trailing number.
And there are more.
But you get the idea and these are really the most commonly used brainless passwords as I give the example
of Mike, try to avoid using such passwords and it will be tried to keep a password, that data that
is easier for you to remember, but it is difficult for, you know, hackers or bad guys to get into
it.
But that is it.
In the next lecture will see the different password parameters and how to manage the passwords.
And I will also talk about security audits.
I will give you a short intro of security audits and why they are important when it comes to user account
management.