Don't ::

• Do not use personal information. You should never use personal information as a part of your password. It is very easy for someone to guess things like your last name, pet's name, child's birth date and other similar details.

• Do not use real words. There are tools available to help attackers guess your password. With today's computing power, it doesn't take long to try every word in the dictionary and find your password, so it is best if you do not use real words for your password.

Tips For Creating Strong Passwords You Can Remember
 

The idea is that you use a variety of words associated with an event that other people would not readily guess. Remember that you may also need to mix in uppercase letters and numbers when you create a new password. For instance, "hurry" could become hUrry66 or Hur5ry.

One of the problems with passwords is that users forget them. In an effort to not forget them, they use simple things like their dog’s name, their son’s first name and birth date, the name of the current month- anything that will give them a clue to remember what their password is.

Substitute numbers for letters based upon their appearance. With a little imagination, you can visualize numbers that bear resemblance to letters.

The Best practices to create a Password ::

• Mix different character types. You can make a password much more secure by mixing different types of characters. Use some uppercase letters along with lowercase letters, numbers and even special characters such as '&' or '%'.

• Use a passphrase. Rather than trying to remember a password created using various character types which is also not a word from the dictionary, you can use a passphrase. Think up a sentence or a line from a song or poem that you like and create a password using the first letter from each word. 

For example, rather than just having a password like 'yr$1Hes', you could take a sentence such as "I like to visit tools at Webmaster Online" and convert it to a password like 'il2vt@WbMstrO". By substituting the number '2' for the word 'to' and using '@' for 'at', you can use a variety of character types and create a secure password that is hard to crack, but much easier for you to remember.

Using the tips above will help you create passwords that are more secure, but you should still also follow the following tips:

You should use a different username and password for each login or application you are trying to protect. That way if one gets compromised the others are still safe. Another approach which is less secure, but provides a fair tradeoff between security and convenience, is to use one username and password for sites and applications that don't need the extra security, but use unique usernames and more secure passwords on sites such as your bank or credit card companies.

You should change your password at least every 30 to 60 days. You should also not re-use a password for at least a year.

The use of good, hard-to-guess passwords can make it difficult for a malicious hacker to break into your computer account. Avoiding predictable keywords and using different methods to introduce variety into your passwords makes it easy for you to remember them but virtually impossible for others to guess them.