Password policies

Passwords are an important characteristic of computer security. A poorly constructed, weak password may result in unauthorized access or exploitation of organization IT resources. This password construction guideline applies to all passwords, including (but not limited to) user-level accounts, system-level accounts, web accounts, email accounts, and local router logins. On a Windows system, you can run secpol.msc from the Command Prompt: 

Strong passwords have the following characteristics:

• They contain at least twelve alphanumeric characters
• They contain both upper and lowercase letters
• They contain at least one number (for example, 0-9)
• They contain at least one special character (for example, !$%^*()_+|~-=\`{}[]:";'?,/)

Following are some of the password policies we must remember:

• Protect your password: It is very challenging to remember your password without writing it down somewhere, so choose a strong password or passphrase that you will easily remember. If you have a lot...