Encryption USB Drives & Encryption Passwords

We all want to make sure that we are safe from being attacked. That's why we've always had armed forces, early defense systems and machinery of mass destruction.

Funny thing, in the world of Encrypted Passwords, the villain seems to be Brute Force Attacks brought on by people who aim to hurt you or your business. So, when it comes to your great Encrypted USB Drive that you've just purchased, the best thing would be to know the guidelines that should govern the type of password you adopt and use. As such, I've compiled a quick list of what to choose and what not to choose, a plethora of information I've gathered while in the IT Security business and while dealing with Encrypted USB Drives.

1. It has more than 6 characters. The longer the password is, the harder to crack it using brute force attack.
2. It contains both small case and upper case characters. This doubles brute force attack time, because it needs to check both cases.
3. It contains numerical characters. This adds another 10 possibilities for each character in the password and thus increases cracking time.
4. It contains special characters. This adds another 20 or more characters to the possibilities.
5. It contains more than 12 characters. This increases cracking time even more.

As you can see, it is not incredibly difficult to have a very difficult to crack password. In the application of any Encrypted USB Drives, where you likely have very important and sensitive information, you should do the following to grade the level of password you have chosen.

For every point above that your password meets or exceeds the guidelines, give yourself a score of 1. If you do not have, at the very least, a score of 4, try again. No Encrypted USB Drive should ever be floating around without that level of password.

Remember, no matter how good the encryption algorithm may be, an Encrypted USB Drive is only as good as its password.