Appreciation post: My home network was way safer after I switched from a default router password to a full passphrase

For the longest time, I just used the admin password sticker on my router. Last month, a friend who does IT told me to change it to a random 4-word phrase like 'correct-horse-battery-staple'. I did, and the next week my ISP flagged a brute force attack that the old password would have failed against in minutes. The passphrase stopped it cold. Has anyone else seen a real difference after making a switch like this?

2 comments

2 Comments

calebhayes6d ago

Is a passphrase really that much better? I just use a long random string of letters and numbers. Seems like the key is length and not using common words.

jakef666d ago

Oh man, "correct-horse-battery-staple" is the classic. My old password was basically "router123" and I pictured a hacker just sighing in disappointment when they got in. Now I use something like "blue-coffee-table-frog" and I imagine them getting to "blue-coffee-table" and just giving up to go bother someone with a password like "password." It's the little things.