I am writing a document to send out to everyone in my organization with some tips on creating more secure passwords. A common problem is that with long passwords requirements, which we have, is that people tend use patterns or reuse large chucks of old passwords and simply replace a few characters, PassWordxxxx, changing the xxxx with each reset.

I have an idea to help people create complex, and seekingly random passwords and I want comments and suggestion on if it seems good.

Pick 2 unrelated airports from 2 random cities in the world and the final score of a sporting event.

In this example I’ll use Gatwick, London (LGW) and Juneau, Alaska (JNU) and game 7 of the ‘05 NBA Finals 74-81, the order is up to you. The password could then use those characters and various patterns. An example would be: lgwjnu7481JNULGW&$*!

&$*! is 7481+shift.

The airport codes could simply be replaced other things like the 2 letter codes from 2 random elements form the periodic table, the 2 letter codes for 2 different states, etc.

The numbers could be an area code for a random major city, a year that may have some significance, etc.

Another example would be wyaz1492AZWY!$(@

!$(@ is 1492+shift.

I know this seems like a lot but once you get it it’s actually a simple concept, and considering that it’s important to be secure it’s supposed to be somewhat complex.