Use Strong Passwords

A strong password can be easy for you to use, while still hard for computers to hack and impossible for people to guess. Whenever possible, I use passwords in the form of 3-5 regular words, all lowercase, separated by dashes or periods. They look a lot like this:

• leisure-handball-basil-burst
• censure-undertow-epsilon-cavalier
• slowly.dollar.dragon.admit

If I have to, I'll include a capital letter, a number, or another symbol. That might look like this:

• &daybed-Skylark-lozenge-chore7

I use a password manager (1Password) to generate and save strong, unique passwords for each of my accounts. If you don't have a dedicated password manager like 1Password, your browser can do some of the things a password manager does. Safari will offer to generate and store strong passwords when setting up an account, and can save passwords. Chrome and Firefox can also save passwords. Get used to saving passwords and looking them up when needed.

You can also generate strong memorable passwords using online tools:

• 1Password memorable password generator 🔗
• Correct Horse Battery Staple secure password generator 🔗

When creating a new password, if you choose not to generate it completely at random, keep these three things in mind:

1: Make it Unique

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking.

Reusing passwords for important accounts is very risky. If someone gets your password for one account, they could access your email, your documents, and even your money. They could change your passwords, locking you out of your own accounts.

If you have trouble remembering multiple passwords, use a password manager to save your passwords.

2: Make it Long

The length of your password is the most important factor in making it secure. Longer passwords are stronger. If it's long enough, it really doesn't matter whether it has capital letters, numbers, symbols, etc. Try to incorporate:

• A lyric from a song or poem
• A meaningful quote from a movie or speech
• A passage from a book
• A series of words that are meaningful to you (be careful to avoid making it easy to guess)
• An abbreviation: Make a password from the first letter of each word in a sentence

Avoid choosing passwords that could be guessed by:

• People who know you
• People looking at easily accessible info (like your social media profile)

3: Make it Strange

Don’t use personal info

Avoid creating passwords from info that others might know or could easily find out. Examples:

• Your nickname or initials
• The name of your child or pet
• Important birthdays or years
• The name of your street
• Numbers from your address

Don’t use common words & patterns

Avoid using words, phrases, and patterns that are easy to guess. Examples:

• Obvious words and phrases like “password” or “letmein”
• Sequences like “abcd” or “1234”
• Common phrases like “to be or not to be” or “think different”
• Keyboard patterns like “qwerty” or “qazwsx”
• Examples of strong passwords (don’t use the password examples from this guide)