Operating Systems/Linux/Ubuntu/Ubuntu 16.04 LTS/Bad-Passwords

Why Passwords

Passwords are required to keep accounts and info limited to only those that should have access; however, weak (bad) passwords can compromise this by making the accounts easier to access via brute force cracking or using rainbow tables, that of course being undesirable.

What Makes a Good Password

A good password should be: complex, long, and easy to remember.

• Complex (Character Classes)
  • Letters
  • Numbers
  • Symbols
  • Emojis 🤷‍♂️
• Long
  • 10+ letters long
• Easy to remember
  • So you can type it in more naturally and so you don't resort to poor practices like writing it on a sticky note.

How to Set Someone's Password

Often times you will see an account with a weak password in the readme, you will get points for changing it to something more secure. (do NOT change the password of the account you are logged in as)

CLI

1. Open Terminal
2. Run sudo bash
3. Run passwd [name of user]¹
4. Then follow the prompts
   • (you should probably document the password somewhere in case you need to access the account again, not good sec practices but it works for this)

GUI

1. Open System Settings
2. Navigate to User Accounts
3. Unlock the settings page
4. Click on the dotted out password of the user who's password you want to change
5. Fill in the boxes on the window that pops up and click Change

¹I have been having trouble getting passwd to work, whatever I enter it only changes the root password. However, according to all the documentation I have seen that should work.