May

Tips for creating a strong password

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Use long passwords. The longer your password is, the better. Use a password that has at least 8 characters, and for your high-security accounts, security experts recommend even longer passwords: at least 14 characters. (How can you remember 14 characters? See “Consider building passwords based on phrases” below for some ideas.)

Mix it up. Use a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols—the more types of characters you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.
To illustrate: For an 8-character password with all lowercase letters, a cracking tool would be able to run through every possible combination in 2.42 days. By mixing in uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols, the tool would take 210 years to run through every combination.

Use text that’s not in a dictionary. A password cracking program can check millions of dictionary words in seconds. Avoid “real” words that can be found in a dictionary.

Change passwords regularly. Change your passwords on a regular basis. Every 60-90 days is the recommendation of most security advisors; you may want to change them more or less often depending on the security of the information the password is protecting.

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Tips for creating a strong password