Occasionally your password will be checked for security purposes. If your password is ‘substandard’ and easily cracked, you will receive an email message requesting that you change your password along with instructions on how to do so.
Following the guidance below should help you to choose a strong password that will be more secure and so harder to crack.
DON’T use:
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the word “password”
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your own name or account name
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common names of people or places
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a word that can be found in any dictionary
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keys in sequence on the keyboard (like QWERTY)
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repeating sequences (like “abcabc” or “........”)
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technical jargon (dictionaries for those exist too!).
Some examples of bad passwords are:
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mypasswo – obviously plain-text based (“mypassword”)
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kathy5 – name based
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........ – repeating sequence
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abcabc – as above
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dr1v3way – word-based with common letter/number substitution
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gandalf1 – based on the name of a character from The Hobbit
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triskeli – based on a word from Star Trek (“triskelion”).
DO use:
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a password with a mix of upper- and lower-case letters, symbols, and numbers
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passwords at least eight characters in length
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mix characters from both of the following characters sets into the first seven characters:
- alphanumeric characters
- other characters not mentioned above – for example, symbols or punctuation marks.
A couple examples of good passwords are:
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Mfd1abS – based on “My favourite drink is a banana smoothie”
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ampRal8C! – based on “All my passwords are at least 8 characters”
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Wwtlt1cmp? – based on “When was the last time I changed my password?”.
Of course, since these examples are now widely known, choosing one of these is not recommended.