How do I make my password strong and secure?

There are many ways to protect both yourself and your accounts across online services today including ensuring that, whenever possible, you are always connected to a website via an encrypted link like https.

The heart of ensuring your online accounts and information is protected is having a strong password, here are 3 tips to easily and quickly create a strong password:

Tip #1: Make it Unique

Avoid using common words or names as passwords as well as any word or name that someone could easily identify as one you would choose. For example, avoid using your pet’s name as your password and use a different password for each of your online accounts.

Tip #2: Length Matters

Create a password that is 10 characters or more. Short passwords, for example 4-character passwords, can be cracked with brute force techniques relatively easily (when a computer tries every possible combination).

Tip #3: Mix it up

By including uppercase and lowercase characters as well as punctuation, symbols, and numbers in your password, it increases its complexity from a protection point of view. For example, a 6-character password with a mix of those characters is one that could have over a million different possibilities.

Keep in mind that a password that is difficult to crack doesn’t have to be difficult for you to remember!

Start by thinking of a unique phrase you will remember that meets the length recommended in the second tip and then mix up the characters.

For example, “idrinkorangejuice” can easily become “!Dr!nk0r4n631u!c3”