Setting and remembering strong passwords

Though many people know the importance of having strong passwords, to change them frequently, and to not reuse passwords, they don't always follow the advice because it is inconvenient or because it is easier to remember reused passwords. For instance, it was recently reported that even Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook had an embarrassment when it was discovered that he reused some passwords across accounts. Similarly, people like to use their birthday, children's names, pet names, etc. because it is easier to remember passwords that way.

There are tricks to creating strong passwords and remembering them. One way is by using a mnemonic of a sentence. For instance, a password for a shopping site could be remembered as "Wagtb#2p" - this is a strong password - minimum 8 characters, it has a capital letter, it has a number and a special character. How do you remember this? This specific password is actually a mnemonic of the sentence "We are going to buy #2 pencils". There are several password managers available as well in the market.   Individuals can use these secure apps to store and retrieve passwords. Having a strong password is important. Why? Because hackers are constantly at work day and night to crack passwords and get into accounts for multiple reasons - identity spoofing, stealing valuable information, etc. Once your identity is stolen, it is very difficult and time-consuming to set things right again.

Get into the discipline of following proper cyber hygiene and follow the rules of having strong passwords and not repeating them across accounts.   Once you establish a process of setting strong passwords and finding ways that work for you to remember them, you will find that it's not that difficult after all.

View our brief video on setting strong passwords by clicking here.

By Sanjay Deo.