What’s the most common password? You guessed it…”password.” Obviously this is not the best way to protect yourself against hackers and online thieves. But even if you don’t use the word “password,” you might be using an equally easy password to decipher.
We suggest you DON’T use the following passwords for really important web sites, such as your online banking web site or other financially related sites.
- Your name or your spouse’s name.
- Your children’s names.
- Your pet’s name.
- Your birth date.
- The last four digits of your Social Security number.
- Your phone number.
- Your address.
- A series of consecutive numbers, such as “1, 2, 3, 4.”
- A single word that would appear in a dictionary.
- Randomly replace letters with numbers, e.g. flirt becomes fl1r7.
- Pick a sentence, i.e. your passphrase, and reduce it to first letters of each word only, e.g. “Everything I Do I Do It For You” becomes EIDIDIFY.
- Take a word and reverse spell it, e.g. neighborhood becomes doohrobhgien.
You can use several of these techniques to create a password that you won’t forget. Here are some suggestions
These examples are not very safe. While none of the words can be found in a dictionary, they are still failing other characteristics of a safe password. Try to find a combination that allows you to incorporate all characteristics.