This article was written by Mike Panic and is about: Computers, Internet

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Password security for websites to ATM machines is one of the biggest hassles for most people, one of the biggest concerns for security consultants and technicians. Some questions you should ask yourself about your passwords are

• Do you use the same password for everything?
• Is the password a real word?
• Is the password something personal to you, such as a date, city or name?
• Do you ever change your passwords?

Chances are you use the same password for everything, it is a real word and has some significance to you, like a pet’s name or the city you were born in, and you probably never change it unless a website you login to requires you to.

There are a several sites that list the top 10 most common, this site lists them as:

1. 123
2. password
3. liverpool
4. letmein
5. 123456
6. qwerty
7. charlie
8. monkey
9. arsenal
10. thomas

Some of those are clearly aimed towards those who live in the UK, but that is a good set list. God is another really common password, as is asdf. How important is it to pick a secure password? You tell me, how critical is your information. Sadly, no one thinks about this sort of stuff until it is too late.

What makes a secure password?

• Not using real words, cities, names or events
• A combination of upper and lower case, numbers and extra characters like the exclamation and underscore keys
• Minimum of eight characters
• Changing it often, as in more then once a year
• Not writing it down anywhere

There are a few websites online that will generate a random password for you, like PCTools.com but I find that these are near impossible to remember. So how can you create a secure password that you can easily remember?

One trick is to take a common word like hello and adding sequential numbers between it, the end result would be h1e2l3l4o5. You could further strengthen that by capitalizing the first and last letters for a result of H1e2l3l4O5.

I’ve tried this result and never had much luck with it. From my experience, finding common words that I can remember and then rhyming with them is the easiest. Lets say take the word coffee and rhyme with it like a child often does to create a non-English word, like loffee. Only being 6 characters, it is not long enough so I’ll take my favorite number, say 23 and add it to the start and end of the word. The result is 2loffee3, an eight character password. Using the technique above, I’ll capitalize the first and last letters in the word for added strength and get 2LoffeE3. Not bad, but we can still make this more secure.

Coffee is easy to remember, its cousin, the fake word loffee isn’t a far stretch, and 23 is my favorite number. By using the shift key we can add in characters that will make the password even more secure though. Using the last password of 2LoffeE3 and holding the shift key for the two and three keys, I end up with @LoffeE#. Essentially it is still the same keystrokes, but using the variations of holding the shift key I have created another secure password.

Lastly, don’t write down the password anywhere. If someone has access to your computer, the first place they look for passwords is not on the computer itself, but taped to the bottom of your keyboard or in your top desk drawer. Also use a different password for everything, ever site, ever credit card, every option you have. I know this can be a bit of a pain, but in the long run it is worth it. Lastly, if use a laptop or other people have access to your computer, do not use the autosave function in any browser, it is like giving a key to the front door of your house.

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