Password Security

Good passwords are EXTREMELY important.  Especially when it comes to important sites (banking, healthcare, email, etc.).  On those important ones… Your password should be at least (you might want to sit down for this one…) 10 characters long.  Length is very important when it comes to good passwords.

Beyond that… Here are some tricks that will help you in making good passwords.

  1. Use UPPER and lower case
  2. Substitute numbers for letters (1 for i or l, 5 for s, 8 for B, etc.)
  3. Substitute symbols for letters (! for i or l, $ for s, @ for a, etc.)
  4. Misspell things in your passwords to make them unpredictable (luv for love; dem for them)
  5. Pick 4 characters that you could begin using before each of your passwords.  Example… ,.;’ are close together on the keyboard and easy to remember.  So your password could be ,.;’LuvdemBullDogs (please don’t use that for your password… come up with your own)
  6. Never use things commonly known about you in your password (kids or pets names, birthdates, graduation year, etc.).
  7. And finally… NEVER NEVER NEVER repeat passwords, especially on sites that matter.

Test Your Password

https://howsecureismypassword.net/

How’s a person supposed to keep up with all those various usernames and passwords?

The answer is to use a Password Manager or Password Safe.

Here’s one example that we recommend:

Password Safe: This one can be completely contained on your computer or your thumb drive.  It is FREE for the computer and Android versions, and only $2.99 for the Apple version.

Computer Version

Android Version

Apple Version