How to Create a Strong Password

How to create a strong password
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Every week there are reports of new data breaches, where massive amounts of personal information are leaked and exposed. Many of these data breaches revolve around unscrupulous people getting access to personal accounts as a result of weak or compromised passwords.

Basically, a password acts like a gate or a door into your home. If the gate or door is strong and secured with a reputable lock, chances of an intruder using it to access your private space are low.

Though most cybercriminals have password cracking tactics, they would rather buy that info from the dark web instead of trying to break into your account where they are not assured of success.

So how do you create a strong password to forestall any prospects of someone breaking into your account?

Stay away from the obvious
Hackers know that most people use certain sequential letters or numbers as their passwords such as 1,2,3,4 or qwerty because they are easy to remember. They also know people tend to use some aspects of their personal info such as date of birth or name when they are creating passwords. Keep in mind that if a hacker has you in their sights, they will do anything to guess your password.

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Choose a multiple word phrase and throw in a twist
While a hacker might try guessing words such as ‘quandary’, throwing in a twist by writing them in a local dialect or adding related but unusual words such as ‘ambivalence’ in a different language can save you a lot of heartaches. Let’s say you decided to write it in Dutch. Ambivalence reads ambivalentie in Dutch, so you will end up having a password reading “ quandaryambivalentie”. To make it harder to guess or crack the password, you can write some letters in uppercase while others are in lower case. Therefore, the password would read “ qUandaryAmBivalEntie”. It is also recommended that you throw in other random numbers or characters that you associate with that phrase. Adding non-letter characters or numbers makes your password exponentially harder to crack.

Sentence technique
This method is commonly known as the Bruce Schneier Method. Bruce, a security expert, came up with a password technique that takes a sentence about something you are familiar with and turns it into a password sentence.

Let’s assume you have a pet known as Little Sir. Now, Little Sir is a dog that loves hitting the trails with you every evening. Therefore, your password would go something like “Little Sir loves going on trails with me daily”.

To make it more complex, assign each word characters or letters that you can remember. Basically, the sentence reading ‘Little Sir loves going on trails with me daily’ would translate into ‘LittleSlGotwD’.

You can enhance it further by including the breed of the dog and the month or year you acquired it. So, if the dog is a beagle, and you brought it home in June, your password might look like this ‘LittleSlGotwDBe06’.

The above tips and tricks not only show you how to create a strong password, but they also prove that a good password can be memorable by associating it with certain things or events.

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