How to Create Secure Passwords

Your guide to creating and using secure passwords online

Every Internet user has at least one, but very few know how to use them properly. Passwords carry great power and responsibility – whether a single password applies to a social networking account, your online banking, or your local library, passwords are designed to protect your personal information and ensure that the only person who uses your account is you. The following tips will help you create secure passwords and help protect your information from prying eyes.

Content

Hands up if you’ve ever used the same password for more than one thing online (that would include me). The problem with creating a few memorable passwords – or, even worse, just creating one – and using them for different websites is that if a password is hacked, this could compromise several accounts in one go.

Another cardinal sin of the password world is using memorable information. This includes names of pets, partners, children, birthday dates, where you live and other information that not only you, but anyone who knows you will be able to guess. We’ve all been there – and I speak as someone whose email password many years ago was “password” (I thought I was being so clever). Memorable passwords might be more convenient for you but quite often they’re far easier to guess than you imagine.

Format

For maximum security, passwords should contain a mixture of numbers, letters and symbols, such as &^%$*. The optimum password length is eight characters or more. At this point, you might be wondering how to create passwords that fit this criteria, are difficult to guess but are still remotely memorable.

Microsoft suggest taking a phrase, such as “I like computers”, running it together into “Ilikecomputers”, mixing up the spelling and abbreviating in a way that would make your 5th-grade English teacher gasp “I<3compootors”, then adding a meaningful numbers to the beginning, end or as substitute letters: “I<3comp00tors2012”. While this method isn’t foolproof, it does give you an easy way of creating more secure passwords without having to click the “forgot password” button every time you log in to a website.

You can also create a password using a mnemonic (the first letter of each word in a memorable phrase) and adding some numbers and symbols.

Tools

A number of tools and apps can make creating and remembering passwords easier.

1Password for Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone and Android, creates unique passwords for each of your online accounts and stores them. All you have to do is remember an unlock code: each time you need to use a password, log in to the software and retrieve the relevant information. All data is encrypted and you can share your information with your smartphone using the cloud.

Other password storage options that operate on a similar principal to 1Password include Sticky Password, which is free up to 15 passwords, KeyWallet and KeePass, which are both open source password storage systems.

Sharing

The golden rule for sharing passwords is: don’t.

If you’re ever in a position where you do need to share a password with someone – for example, if you own a website and need a friend to give you technical help with the hosting – change it beforehand, or log in for them if you’re both there in person. A company, institution or support service you are using should never ask you for your password, and you should question any request of this nature.

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