How to Create Strong Passwords (That Won't Get Hacked Easily)

Unfortunately not everyone on the internet has the best of intentions, hackings do occur and users and website admins with simple passwords run the risk of having their website, facebook, myspace, twitter, and even e-mail hacked into.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• a little creativity

1. Utilize the whole keyboard. Simple words and names and the easiest types of passwords to crack. Make your passwords a mix of lower case, upper case letters, numbers and symbols. A password like "happiness" will be much easier to hack than "H4pP1N3sS"

2. To add length to a password try coming up with a phrase you can easily remember instead of just a specific word. The phrase can be anything, your school's motto, a line from a poem or song, or a favorite quote. Don't forget to make the quote alphanumeric for example "All3day7i2DrEam2aBoUt4SocCEr" or "ThE33GooD34LiFe"

3. Use alternative spellings so that hackers using programs that use frequent english words to hack passwords can't break in. For example, instead of "Night_Life" use "Nite_Lyfe"

4. Don't be afraid to use symbols. ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) _ + =
   
   This will trip up must hacking software used. Such as a password like "@dAm'$_@pp13" instead of "Adam's_Apple"

Tips & Warnings

• Leet, or 1337, is not only fun but useful.
• Don't use the same passwords for multiple accounts, if a hacker gets one password for your account, they know have all your passwords to your accounts.

[Mindee94]

on 8/26/2009 Great tips and suggestions with an awesome opening pic.

[sanderdoe]

on 8/12/2009 Great tips for creating strong passwords. 5*

[ginajennings]

on 8/9/2009 Good info. I did have someone hack into one of my advertising accounts. So I had to change my password. It was an easy one, too. Lesson learned.

[spongie84]

on 8/8/2009 Good information