How many of you setup a single password for all of your logins?

And have you ever considered what would happen to your personal information if someone were to get their hands on it?

Everyday we hear nightmare stories of Stolen Identities. One way to avoid becoming the next statistic is to use unique passwords for the websites you visit. Below is one of the many ways to make passwords unique and secure. And all the while, easy to remember.

1. Passwords should be at the minimum a combination of numbers and letters.
2. The ideal password would also combine the numbers and letters with symbols.
3. Passwords should be a minimum of 6 characters long. The ideal length of passwords should be 8 – 10 characters.
4. You should use a combination of capitalized and non-capitalized letters in your password.

So how are you going to devise a password that does all of the above and still be memorable? Here is a simple strategy.

• Capitalize the third letter of a password.
• If symbols are allowed, some websites may not allow symbols, convert the vowels to a symbol:a = @, e = 3, i = 1, o = 0, u = ^
• Start you password with two numbers, if symbols are allowed you can use the equivalent symbol for the numbers(i.e., 1 =! , 2 = @, 3 = #, etc.).

Examples:

For the website: HomeDepot.com

Pick two favorite two digit numbers. For this example my numbers are 45 & 87.

My symbol combinations for my favorite numbers are: $% and *& respectively.

Example #1 – 8 character password

$%h0M3d3 This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

Example #2 – 8 character password, no symbols

45h0M3d3 This password should only be used when symbols are not allowed. It is always best to include a symbol. Please note, all the same rules applied without the symbols.

Example #3 – 13 character password

$%h0M3d3p0t*& This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

In this example, we used both of our favorite number combinations as symbols.

Last Example: 8 character password, symbols and a very short domain(website name):

For the website: Go.com

This provides us with a variation using all of the rules we learned before. For an eight character password, we have to juggle somethings up.

$%g0.C0m Instead of using just the domain name, we also included the suffix of “.com” by using the same rules. When used in combination, all of these passwords are considered to be very strong and hard to guess.

Here are a couple of Do’s & Don’ts

Here are some guidelines about what secure passwords should not include:

• Your name
• Your spouse’s name
• Your parent’s name
• Your pet’s name
• Your child’s name
• Names of close friends or coworkers
• Names of your favorite fantasy characters
• Your boss’s name
• Anybody’s name
• The name of the operating system you’re using
• The hostname of your computer
• Your phone number
• Your license plate number
• Any part of your social security number
• Anybody’s birth date
• Other information that is easily obtained about you
• Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
• Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
• A word in the English dictionary
• A word in a foreign dictionary
• A place
• A proper noun
• Passwords of all the same letter
• Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
• Any of the above spelled backwards
• Any of the above followed or prepended by a single digit

Good passwords:

• Have both upper and lower case letters
• Have digits and/or punctuation characters as well as letters
• Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
• Are seven or eight characters long
• Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder

SecurityStats.com This site has a great tool to test the strength of your passwords along with some other useful tips.

Microsoft.com Has a wonderful article about Strong passwords: How to create and use them you can read this by clicking here.

While there are many different strategies commonly used in customizing passwords, I have found this to be the easiest to remember for multiple websites. Another great way of managing passwords is to use a software based program. There are many available for both PC’s and Mac’s. A Google search using the phrase of “password manager mac” or “password manager pc” will provide you with an abundant list of alternatives.