Your passwords allows you access to your personal data while keeping others out. For this reason it is important that you choose strong passwords. If you follow these tips you will have a very strong password:
1. Make you password long. Each character you add to your password makes it many times stronger. Ideally your password should be 12-14 characters long. Most modern systems allows you to input a space in your password. This allows you to use a phrase as your password which is not only stronger, but easier to remember.
2. Use a wide variety of characters. The more different types of characters you use in your password you use the stronger and harder to crack it will be.
3. Don’t just use the common characters. Throw in some lesser used characters to increase the strength of your password.
4. Avoid repeated characters. Try not to include the same character next to itself in the password. For example don’t use 1223, instead use perhaps 1232.
5. Don’t use your login name. Don’t ever make your password the same as your user name. This is often the first thing a hacker will try when trying to crack a password.
6. Don’t use words in the dictionary. Ok, this one may sound odd. There are many tools out there to crack passwords that can crack a dictionary word password in no time flat.
7. Avoid same passwords. In other words, try not to use the same password for other sites. If you do your other information will be compromised if your password is cracked.
8. Don’t use digital storage. Don’t store your password in a digital file. This makes it much easier for a hacker to find.
Assuming you follow these guidelines you will have done everything in your power to help protect your identity and data with your passwords.
