Bill Burr at the National Institute of Standards and Technology now regrets the golden-rule advice he gave on passwords.

The said advice was to use figures, letter and keyboard symbols, using at least eight characters. Well, it turns out that it is not much defence against determined hackers. Oh, and a different password for each site is also a waste of time, he now considers.

So, we have been creating obscure passwords, and many of them across our social media accounts, etc, trying desperately to remember them all, when we needn’t have, it appears.

People have a sad tendency to use the name of their pet or grandchild or somebody’s birthday, which is why facebook is full of someone ‘innocently’ asking, “who has a long-lost pet that they miss so much?” Or something equally transparent to find out if you’re using a pet name.

The best words are simply sentences of at least 16 characters (five words or longer) that you won’t forget; Mary had a little lamb… etc, is not one of them. Obviously, don’t separate the words with spaces: uglierthanamonkeysuckingonalemon for example.

Anyway, don’t go changing all your passwords now, but when it’s time to change one, or you need a new one, then perhaps use this method.

Finally, did you know that there is a World Password Day? Well, there is, on the first Thursday of May each year and has been going on since 2013.

Editorial note: this article was written at the beginning of the month but we somehow forgot to publish it…

(News: Spain)