Pet, family, or friend names Words that appear in the dictionary (e. g. , “c@stl3” is fine, while “castle” is not) Personal information (e. g. , your phone number)
Both upper- and lower-case letters Numbers Symbols At least 12 characters Not easily decipherable as a real word or phrase upon first glance
Removing the vowels from a word or phrase (e. g. , “my favorite movie” becomes “mfvrtmv”). Shifting your hands when typing (for example, using the motion that you’d use to type “wikiHow” with your hands shifted down one row on the keyboard). Doubling your password (e. g. , creating a password, typing a space or a separating character, and retyping the password).
For example, you might pick the name of your favorite song from a specific album, or your favorite phrase from a specific book. Make sure that you don’t pick a word or phrase that people know you like.
Some experts even recommend finding several random words and stringing them together without modifying them past that point.
Most services require this step when creating a password.
It’s incredibly important not to repeat your password more than once (e. g. , don’t use your Facebook password for your email account, etc. ).
For added security points, hold down the ⇧ Shift key while typing the second half of the password (e. g. , “h@r0ldh@r0ld” would become “h@r0ldH@R)LD”).
If you replaced any letters with numbers, you might switch back to using letters and use numbers for different letters in the password.
