Setting up a secure password

We often give our students advice on making wise decisions with their passwords (not sharing it, not writing it down, keeping it safe) but often we as teachers do not take the same care with our own password. Here are some guidelines we offer to students in creating their passwords:

1. It should be secure (hard to guess or hack but easy to remember). Most passwords are one or the other.\
2. It should be at least 8 characters in length (more is better).
3. It should have at least 1 number and 1 symbol in addition to letters
4. It should use both upper and lower case letters

One method is to take a word or phrase you can remember and substitute symbols and numbers (such as "0neR1ng2rul$" or "U$Ag0ld-R1O2o16". You can also take the first letters of a memorable phrase or quote and do the same thing (for instance, "Two out of three dentists prefer Crest for whiter teeth" becomes "2oo3DpC4wt"). Extra symbols or letters at the beginning or end can always be added as well (so, #2oo3DpC4wt@@). Some people choose a base password and then add different prefixes or suffixes depending on where the password is being used. Passwords like these are hard to guess or hack but easy to remember.

You may also be interested in a password vault or password manager, which can store, generate and manage multiple passwords for various sites ... but you still need one password to get in, so the above tips should still help.