Lots of online accounts , lots of passwords . Managing passwords have become difficult these days , some people are still using passwords like 'password' or '123456'. It is dangerous to use only one password for all your online accounts. So you must create a strong and unique password which is easy to remember and difficult to crack.
Characteristics of a Good password :
- It is not a dictionary word .
- It contains special characters and numbers .
- It contains a mix of upper case and lower case letters .
- It has a minimum length of 8 characters .
- It is not related to your personal information like birth date , name , phone number etc .
Tips for creating strong passwords:
- Randomly replace letters with numbers , e.g. phones becomes ph0n35 .
- Pick a sentence and reduce it to first letter of each word only , e.g. "HAVING A HEALTHY DISREGARD FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE" becomes HAHDFTI .
- Take a word and reverse spell it , e.g. laptop becomes potpal .
- Don't use common substitutions , e.g. @ for 'A/a' .
- Pick a pattern on your keyboard and type it with alternate use of SHIFT key , e.gZsE4%rDxCfT6 .
- Use your own creativity in replacing letters with numbers and special characters .
- You can use your base password for each of your online accounts , e.g. H@HD4T!:)GMa for your Gmail account or H@HD4T!:)Fb for your Facebook account .
- You can use password managers like LastPass and OpenID .
25 Worst passwords of 2011:
- password
- 123456
- 12345678
- qwerty
- abc123
- monkey
- 1234567
- letmein
- trustno1
- dragon
- baseball
- 111111
- iloveyou
- master
- sunshine
- ashley
- bailey
- passw0rd
- 123123
- shadow
- 654321
- superman
- qazwsx
- michael
- football
Hope you are not using any one of them.
