How to Create a Strong Password

Your password allows access to personal information in your online accounts or information that you've stored on your computer. If somebody gets this information, they can use your name to open new credit card accounts, apply for a mortgage, or pose as you in online transactions. Most of the time, you wont know until it is too late. Most users have an easy to remember password that they use for everything. These are usually the names of family members, pets, phone numbers, birth days sports teams etc. Other types of passwords that aren't secure are those based on words found in the dictionary, the word password or key combinations like 123456, 7410, qwerty etc.

Here are PC Magazine's top 10 passwords

1. password
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10. (your first name)

For a real eye opener look at the list of the top 500 passwords here 1 out of every 9 of you will see your password on the list.

If any of these resemble your password or worse, your password is on the list, change it now!

Here is how to create a strong password that is also easy to remember.

Your password should be at least seven characters long and consist of a variety of of letters, numbers, symbols and both upper and lower case letters. When working with users, I always recommend a pass phrase taking common dictionary words and reworking them into a series of numbers and symbols to create the same word visually. For example the word password can be reworked to p@$$W0rD by simply using symbols for certain letters and mixing upper and lower case letters. If you follow this format when creating your passwords it will be much harder to crack and still easy to remember.