We live in a password-driven world, where between six and twenty characters are the key to whether you’re able to access your data, communicate with friends, or make your online purchases. We now know that “password”, “iloveyou” and “123456″ are

some of the most common passwords in use.

Heartbleed, AndroidsmsSend are some of the dangerous viruses discovered just a few

months back that allow intruders to explore vulnerabilities in your computer and mobile,

to trick servers into getting hold of your personal data.

Passwords should ideally be different for every site, long and randomized enough to

stump even the cleverest of computers, robots and devious humans. Follow these tips and tricks to take total control of your terms

for access.

Tips for a Strong Password

Why make life easier for hackers by having the same password to all of your important profiles

and accounts? A study by BitDefender showed that 75 percent of people use their e-mail password for

Facebook, as well. If one website password gets cracked, it means the person with that info now

has access to all of your online accounts. So if you share the same password for Amazon and

Facebook you can say goodbye to both funds and friends. Update and change your password

regularly, maybe every six months.

Make sure your password is long enough

Length is an advantage when it comes to your password. The more characters there are in your password, the more secure, so don’t be afraid to combine words.

Microsoft suggests that your password should be at least eight characters in length. Most websites will have

some type of minimum requirement when creating a password to ensure you don’t end up with an easy-to-

guess four character password. For example, I could combine the first couple of letters of my family

members name to come up with a word, like if I take the Simpson family- Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Marge and Homer,

my password could read BaLiMaMaHom.

Randomized words are more secure

Don’t use common word or phrases even if it is long. A randomized series of characters that include

a mix of letters, numbers and symbols make for a secure password. Your password should contain a

variety of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols.

Make up a sentence

Security technologists recommend thinking of a sentence you can easily remember. It is an excellent way

to come up with a strong password that’s difficult to guess too. For example, take a sentence like “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” Now take the first letter of each

word in the sentence, throw in some punctuation and replace some of those letters with numbers for variety.

That sentence can be converted into a password like this: JFw1utH!. Don’t tempt fate with “dareu2hackme”,

though.

Sing Song

Take a line of your favorite song and use the initial letters of each word. “I’m all ’bout that bass, ’bout that bass, no

treble” would become “iabTBbTbNt”. Don’t sing it out loud every time you go to login though, that would be a

dead giveaway.

Misspellings work

If you’re going to use words or phrases in your password, misspelling them is a great way to make them

more difficult to guess. You can do this by adding symbols and numbers in place of letters. For example, if

you want to use the phrase “I love basketball” in your password, you should change it to something like

“1LuvBBall15″ to make it more secure.

Make The SMaRTChoice

If you’re still unsure about what makes a strong password different from a weak password, here are some examples of passwords that are sure to be cracked “admin,” “iloveyou” and “aaaaaa.” If it’s the name of your relatives, your kids, or your pet, favorite team, or city of your birth, your birthday, anniversary, even your car license plate number, it’s not a strong password.Above all don’t let your browser remember the password for you because it is open to hackers. You’re now ready to create your own strong passwords. Share these tips with others but don’t share your passwords!Check our Smart Technology Services blog for more tips

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