How are your New Year’s Resolutions going? Do you have room to add one more resolution to your list? How about using stronger passwords?

What is a strong password? In short, it uses letters, numbers, and special characters. It also does not use a dictionary word, that is a word that is common or can be found in the dictionary. Using part of your name, first or last, is also a bad idea.

Most places where you sign up for an account has a strength meter for your password. It’s a good idea to at least get it to Medium, though strong is preferred.

It’s also a bad idea to use the same exact password for every site. If someone gets one password, they’ll have access to all your accounts.

So how do you come up with a strong password that you can remember? For one, you could install a program like KeePass, LastPass, or 1Password to keep track of all your passwords, but if your not on your own computer, then you don’t have access (unless you use KeePassPortable). I would recommend coming up with a password using a method. Here’s what I mean by a method.

1. The site’s initials (e.g. Everyday Hacker = EH, Facebook = Fb)
2. The number of characters in the domain name (e.g. EH = 18, Fb = 12)
3. Every odd character of your user name (e.g. username = uenm)
4. A special character (e.g. `_-.)

You can come up with your own method or formula for coming up with passwords, just make sure you remember it.

A couple more notes on password security.

• Don’t give your password to anyone.
• Don’t give your password to any other site.
• Don’t respond to emails asking for passwords.
• If you store your passwords in your browser, use a master password to protect all your passwords.

Doing all that won’t let those bad hackers get your accounts and personal information.

Make it a New Year resolution to use stronger passwords, and to change them once in a while. This will make your online life a lot better.

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