<p>
  Remember security starts at the keyboard in front of you:
</p>

<p>
  A 6 character password has about fifty six billion (56,800,235,584) possibilities and the average computer (the G5 is even faster) can try all combinations (crack them) in 2.5 hours.
</p>

<p>
  A 7 character password has about three and a half trillion (3,521,614,606,208) possibilities and a computer can try all combinations in about 1 week.
</p>

<p>
  An 8 character password has about two hundred trillion (218,340,105,584,896) possibilities and a computer can try all its combinations in about a year.
</p>

<p>
  A 9 character password would take about 70 years for a computer to try all combinations.
</p>

<p>
  They say the chips coming in about a year could half these times! Now if you do not want to wait for next year&#8217;s chip, you can always put 2 computers in parallel and half the time. In theory you could put 365 computers in parallel and break 8 character passwords in just over a day (Virginia Tech just put 1100 G5s in parallel). Do you think hackers have friends?
</p>

<p>
  Computers have a lot more time on their hands than we do and most of the bad guys don&#8217;t have jobs. The next person asking for your social security number could be just a few clicks away from your stock options.
</p>

<p>
  If you just got a chill down your back or just got a little paranoid; good, my work is done.
</p>

<p>
  Use an 8 character password (9 characters is better)&#8230; You would make this security professional very happy if you would change your passwords after you read this e-mail : )
</p>