Taking the time to identify and create a strong (complex) password for your different emails and accounts is one of the most important things you can do for your own personal cyber security.Taking the time to do this step properly when creating an email or account for any service will at least guarantee some form of strong security to make sure you are the only person that is able to access your account. (The next step would be adding two-factor authentication to your accounts which means that you have to verify a successful login attempt by entering a code that you receive as a message on your phone or email. This is especially useful if your login information has been compromised).


What are the requirements for a strong password?

Following the below guidelines will ensure that you have created a strong enough password for your accounts:

● Your password should be a minimum length of eight characters (12+ is recommended).

● Your password should include uppercase letters (At least one, more is better).

● Your password should include lowercase letters (At least one, more is better).

● Your password should include numbers (At least one, more is better).

● Your password should include special characters such as !@#$%^&*)(][/., (At least one, more is better).

● Try your best to not include repeated characters and numbers, or any personally identifiable information such as your name, birthday, SSN, address, and names of relatives or pets.


How can I safely store and/or remember passwords?

Unfortunately, creating one strong password and using it for all of your accounts is something that you should not do. This is a warning that you may have heard or read about more than once while keeping up-to-date on your cyber security awareness. If not, then it is very important to understand this concept because if one of your accounts gets compromised, cyber criminals will actually be attempting to use your login credentials (That is now in their possession) on many other websites and services in hopes of gaining access to other sources of information. With that being said, one of the main complaints that is presented because of this idea of having different strong passwords for different accounts is not being able to remember all these passwords, which leads to worries about being locked out of accounts.


Here are some tips and methods to help with using and remembering different passwords:

● Use a reputable password manager. Most password managers are very simple and user friendly. Password managers include many different features such as password generators and password strength checks. Overall, password managers are very useful because you are required to remember only one master password to access your password database that contains all your different passwords for your different accounts.

● Make your own password creation technique. Depending on the service you are creating an account for, you can begin creating a password based on the name of the service and then having special characters and numbers that are common in your whole password template (Your passwords will be different, yet consistent). You can also create multiple passwords that are a combination of words, therefore making it a long, strong password based on a complete sentence.


Sources:
https://www.uc.edu/infosec/info/passwordsec.html
https://its.lafayette.edu/policies/strongpasswords/