How to Create a Secure Password

Having a secure password doesn’t just mean having a randomly generated passcode with a combination of hard to remember letters, numbers, and characters. There are several ways to create strong, secure passwords that will be difficult for others to guess.

Passphrases

A passphrase is a password created based on a phrase that you can remember, such as “I love my dog, Lucy”. You can use this base phrase, and apply a few different techniques, to create a more secure password.

Starting off with the most simple, you can take the first letter of each word in your phrase. So for the example above, it would look like “ilmdl”. From there, you can use capitalization to increase the security even more, and create a secure password like “IlmdL”.

Adding in numbers increases the security of your passwords, but you want to avoid easily guessable options like 123, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. An easy way to add in numbers with your passphrase is to substitute numbers for letters. For example, replacing some, or all, O’s with 0’s, I’s with 1’s, or E’s for 3’s. Utilizing this technique with the example passphrase, we can get a few examples ranging from “Ilov3mydogLucy” to “1L0v3myd0g1ucy”.

For something a bit more complex, but still utilizing the easy to remember passphrase, incorporate symbols. For this example, you can use create a heart symbol using <3, instead of using the word “love”, to get a password such as “i<3mydogLucy”.

All in all, passphrases are at their most effective and secure when you can use a variety of different methods that you can still remember. Using a combination of the above for the most secure password, we could get examples like “!<3mdLucy” or “!l0v3mdL”.

Avoid Common Words

While you may love your dog Lucy, having easily guessable personal information, such as pets’ names, is not secure and should be avoided. Additionally, you should avoid common words such as “password” as they face the same issue.

However, you can turn those words into passphrases, or use any of the techniques from above to make it rememberable and create a more secure password. For example, while “Password123” is a weak password, something like “P@s$W0rd!@#” would be much more secure.

Create a Theme

In order to maximize your data security, you should not repeat passwords across different accounts. An easy way to ensure you have different passwords for each account is to use a theme. Your theme can be anything you’d like, such as colors, your favorite TV show, or places you’ve travelled. It should be something that you would be able to remember, and can come up with enough characters or words to be able to use for each of your passwords.

For example, if you wanted to do colors, you can do a combination of the two or three primary colors of the webpage. Be sure to utilize the earlier techniques to have it be a more secure password! If you were to create a passphrase for your Microsoft account using the two primary colors, you could create a password along the lines of “Blu3&Whit3!”. Then for your Amazon account, you can create something like “Bl@ck&Y3llow!”. This way you are creating unique and secure passwords while still following a pattern, but it is not as easily guessable.

Use Randomly Generated Passwords

Ultimately, a randomly generated string of numbers and letters is the most secure password in today’s world. There are many tools available online that can help generate these long strings so you don’t have to worry about creating a secure password yourself. While these are not easy to remember, they are the hardest to guess or hack.

Keep Track of Your Secure Passwords

It is important to not reuse passwords, but this can make it difficult to remember all your passwords. That’s where having a trusted password manager, such as BitWarden, to store your passwords securely is helpful. A password manager is a software program that stores your passwords in an encrypted file that can only be accessed with the correct master password. This master password needs to be secure and hard to guess, but it is important to remember your master password. If you forget or lose this password, you will not be able to access or recover your saved ones. You can also keep written versions of your passwords, as long as you keep them in a safe place.

If you would like help getting a password manager set up, our experts at OAC Technology can help you. Start a conversation today with our techs and we can help you make your passwords and accounts more secure!