Strong, Unique Passwords

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Everyone should have a system for generating strong, unique passwords. Having only one password that you use everywhere is simply not a safe practice.  

For every internet service that you use which requires a password online, you should ensure that you have a unique password for that service.  This presents something of a problem: how will you create and remember so many passwords?  Furthermore, they need to be unique passwords, strong enough to be able to ward off any automated hacking attacks…..

Here’s an example of a system that you can adapt and use for creating your own unique, strong passwords.  First, create your own special code “word”.  Make sure it includes at least one upper-case (capital) letter, one number and one special symbol.  A useful trick for making your code word easier to remember is to substitute numbers or symbols for some of the letters.  For example, you have decided to use the name of your cat, Snuggles, as your code word: first, substitute the two S’s with the number 5 (because 5 looks like an S, it is easy to remember).  Do a similar thing by substituting a 3 for the e (a 3 looks like a backwards E).  So now you have this…

5nuggl35

Notice how your brain still sees Snuggles?  Now you can make it stronger by making the first letter a capital (in this case, since we already changed the S to a 5, the first letter is now “n”) – 5Nuggl35.

… and we can make it even stronger still by changing the “l” to a symbol.  Let’s use the exclamation symbol for that, since it looks similar to an l.  So now we have….

5Nugg!35

This is your special code word that you can now use to form every internet password you need!  Next, you need a system for adding something to your code word that will be unique for each website or service that you use.  Again, a system of substituting numbers and / or symbols for letters is a great way to do it.  You just have to make sure to learn and remember your “system”.  To make it unique yet memorable, use the name of the website or service that you are creating the password for and apply your system to it.  Example: you are creating a password for “Google” which you will use for signing into Gmail and other Google services.  Let’s use the same system as we did for our code word.  We’ll leave the G as a capital, since it is the first letter in the word.  We’ll change the “o”s into zeros (they look like “o”s), the “l” into an exclamation mark and the “e” into a 3, so we now have…..

G00g!3

Now we put this together with our code word (placed either before or after) to form our unique Google password….

G00g!35Nugg!35       or 5Nugg!35G00g!3

Use your system consistently, to create unique passwords for all your websites and services.  It doesn’t matter that your code word is the same for all of them because a) it will be very hard for anyone to guess, and b) you have the addition of the website or service name, disguised by your own coding system.  These types of password will usually be rated as “strong”, because of their inclusion of capital letters, numbers and symbols.  Write your passwords down at first if you need to, or make some notes that describe your “system”, but you will soon memorize your special code word along with the system you use, so you won’t need them written down anymore, making things even safer!

Some websites or online services require the use of symbols and / or capital letters for your password, along with a minimum number of characters.  Using a method similar to the one I have detailed above will almost always guarantee conformity.  However, you may occasionally encounter a situation where one of your chosen symbols is not allowed to be used.  I’ve only encountered this one time, where the exclamation mark was not allowed, and I had to use something else for that one website – easy enough for me to remember that one exception.

No matter how strong your passwords are, I would encourage you to also take advantage of 2-step verification systems like the one offered by Google.  These systems supplement your password by generating additional log-in codes, but they do require that you own a smartphone to be able receive them on, either via an app that you install on the phone or via a text message.  Not all websites and services have 2-step verification available but an increasing number do.

Finally, there are numerous password manager services available.  Some are free, with premium paid options.  If you find it too difficult to create and manage your own password system, one of these services might be right for you.  Take some time to investigate and compare the various options before committing to one of these services.  Just do a web search for “password manager” and research what’s available.  I have tried a couple and found these types of services to be a little confusing and, somewhat counter-intuitively, difficult to use, but they may work for you and could be worth a try, especially if your alternative strategy is to keeping using one password everywhere!