Do you have “password” or “123456” as your password? According to CBS news these are two of the most common passwords. Here are some tips on creating strong passwords to prevent security breaches. Thieves have complex software that can find password combinations of words but the more nonsense and longer a password, the more difficult to break.
1. Use nonsense

Thinking of a strong password can be challenging but a helpful way is to create a sentence and use the first letter of each word. For instance,  the sentence, “This is how you can create a strong password to save your identity” would translate to “tihyccasptsyi”

2. Your password should be more than 8 characters long

The longer the password, especially if it is nonsense, the harder to break.

3. Use $pecial ¢haractersand numbers

Using these within your password may be difficult but it is worth the extra security.

It is highly recommended to use different passwords for each site. managing passwords can be difficult and challenging to remember. However there are tools to help you remember. PC suggests 6 password managers to help you track all your different passwords.

If you are hesitant to use a password manager. You can incorporate the site that you are logging in to as a part of the password. For example, lets use “tihyccasptsyi” from earlier. Following the rules above, let’s add some special characters and numbers.”tihyccasptsyi” will now become  T!hyCcasptsy! after the password-strengthening additions.. The trick is now adding either a prefix, suffix, or the domain name from the site that you are logging into as a part of the password. For instance, if you are logging into ebay, a good password might be T!hyCcasptsy!@ebay. The root of your password remains the same, making remembering much easier. However, your password is never the same for multiple platforms because it incorporates the name of the site you are logging into in some way. Here is an example of how you would use the same root password for multiple accounts. The full name of the domain is used if it is one full word and the prefix is used if the domain is 2 words. If you use a system similar to this, you will learn create and adopt your own unique method.

Wells Fargo

T!hyCcasptsy!@wells

Gmail

T!hyCcasptsy!@gmail

Facebook

T!hyCcasptsy!@face

Twitter

T!hyCcasptsy!@twitter

Godaddy

T!hyCcasptsy!@go

Unfortunately, cyber attacks are a prominent and growing part of the modern conveniences that the internet brings . However, after following these simple rules, you can drastically improve the security of your accounts.