Passwords are used for various purposes at Western Digital. Some of the more common
uses include: user level accounts, web accounts, email accounts, screen saver protection
and voicemail passwords. Since very few systems have support for one-time tokens
(i.e., dynamic passwords which are only used once), everyone should be aware of
how to select strong passwords.
Strong passwords have the following characteristics:
* Contain both upper and lower case characters (e.g., a-z, A-Z)
* Have digits and punctuation characters as well as letters e.g., 0-9, !@#$%^&*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'<>?,./)
* Are at least eight alphanumeric characters long.
* Are not a word in any language, slang, dialect, jargon, etc.
* Are not based on personal information, names of family, etc.
* Passwords should never be written down or stored on-line. Try to create passwords
that can be easily remembered.
One way to do this is create a password based on a song title,
affirmation, or other phrase.
For example, the phrase might be: "This May Be One Way To Remember"
and the password could be: "TmB1w2R!" or "Tmb1W>r~" or some other variation.
NOTE: Do not use either of these examples as passwords!
Poor, weak passwords have the following characteristics:
* The password contains less than eight characters
* The password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign)
* The password is a common usage word such as:
- Names of family, pets, friends, co-workers, fantasy characters,
etc.
- Computer terms and names, commands, sites, companies, hardware,
software.
- The words "Western Digital", "sanjose", "sanfran" or any derivation.
- Birthdays and other personal information such as addresses and
phone numbers.
- Word or number patterns like aaabbb, qwerty, zyxwvuts, 123321,
etc.
- Any of the above spelled backwards.
- Any of the above preceded or followed by a digit (e.g., secret1,
1secret)