Having a strong password is very important. If someone steals your passwords, they can use your name to open new credit card accounts, apply for a mortgage, or pose as you in online transactions. You can prevent this, but creating strong passwords !

Create Strong Passwords

The strongest passwords look like a random string of characters to attackers. But random strings of characters are hard to remember.

You can therefore, make a random string of characters based on a sentence that is memorable to you but is difficult for others to guess.

- Mix uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers. – Introduce intentional misspellings.
- Substitute some special characters
- Use symbols that look like letters, combine words, or replace letters with numbers to make the password complex.
- Make sure its at least 8 characters long.

This is how Microsoft suggests you could go about it:

You can also use ASCII characters to make strong passwords!

Having done that, test your new password with Microsoft’s Password Checker. The Password Checker evaluates your password’s strength as you type. You could also check out Password Security Scanner from Nirsoft.

Avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:

- Avoid sequences or repeated characters
“12345678,” “222222,” “abcdefg,” or adjacent letters on your keyboard do not make secure passwords.

- Avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols
Criminals will not be fooled by common look-alike replacements, such as to replace an ‘i’ with a ’1′ or an ‘a’ with ‘@’ as in “M1cr0$0ft” or “P@ssw0rd”.

- Don’t use any part of your or your wife’s name, birthday, social security number, or similar information for your loved ones.

- Avoid dictionary words in any language

- Avoid using only one password for all your accounts

- Avoid using online storage.

You might also want to check out 5 tips to help keep your passwords secret.

There are several random password generators available online, but I’d suggest, is this portable freeware Password Generator.

It also has a Password Checker and a Password Revealer tool too. Using this tool, you can generate completely random passwords. Go here, if you are looking for some online password generators to create strong passwords annonymously.

Stay safe!

Need help in managing your passwords? Try one of these free Password Managers for Windows.

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