Creating and remembering strong passwords — like backing up our computers’ contents — is something many of us know we should do, but don’t.
And can you blame us? Having to come up with user names and passwords for virtually everything we do on a computer is enough to make anyone use “Magic123” over and over. I’ve even heard of people who keep lists of passwords taped to their computer screens.
With a little time and some discipline, you can create strong passwords and do a better job managing them.
Of course, no matter how many precautions you take, no password is ever 100 percent secure. By the same token, you don’t have to follow all the advice in this column to avoid password theft.
By now most people know that you shouldn’t use personal information such as your name, birth date or address in a password. It’s also not a good idea to use something obvious such as “1234” or “password.”
Passwords should be at least seven or eight characters in length. The longer the password, the stronger it is.
Next, choose a password that would appear as nothing more than a random list of characters to someone else. Use both uppercase and lowercase letters and, if possible, use punctuation marks from all over the keyboard. One technique is to take a phrase that means something to you or a line from a favorite song and create a password by taking the first letter of each word of that phrase or line. Make sure to add in some symbols. For instance, you could replace an “a” with “,” but use this technique sparingly in your password.
Although you should never use the same password to secure highly sensitive information on more than one site, it’s probably OK to use the same password for low-risk…