If your password is 'T4IdtwiKa', can you remember it more easily if you're a fan of the Wizard of Oz? ' Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.' The number 4 takes the place of the comma and is the number of legs Toto has. Then use the first letter of each of the words and put in a number or punctuation in there somewhere. Another strategy is to start by thinking of a passphrase, which is a phrase you like or a quote from a movie.It simply picked 16 characters at random. The example is from an online totally random password generator.There are a lot of strategies for creating strong passwords. But who can remember that? And if you write it down and misplace the piece of paper, that isn't really more secure.Ī strong password is one that you can remember easily, but that is pretty long, is made up of a couple of words, numbers and punctuation, but doesn't have anything in it that someone would guess if they looked you up on the Internet. That is certainly much longer, it's not a word, and it does not have any identifiable information. A stronger password might be '9J8LZcWAMzjJQUnD'. Do you see why? Though it might be easy for her to remember, it is very short and contains her street address. For instance, if Sue Jones uses the login 'SJones' to access her email and lives at 314 Apple Pie Road, the password 'pie314' might not be a good choice.

It may not be a good idea, for example, to use your dog's name, your street address, or any information that's somehow connected to your username. One of the challenges you may have when picking a password is making it easy for you to remember, but hard for other people to guess. You use computer passwords every day, whether to access your email account, social networking sites, or even to do online banking. Because passwords are so important, it is a crime to steal passwords and to intentionally access other people's computers. Just as you do not want anyone stealing your password and gaining control of your Instagram account, banks have to take precautions to keep criminals from stealing money. Computer passwords are one of the most important tools used to protect information on computer systems.

As a computer user, you can do your part by being careful about who you talk with over the Internet, what information you share, and by picking and using strong passwords. Providers of computer services (like banking, email, or social media) have the responsibility of keeping hackers out of people's systems.

Keeping yourself and your data safe is often referred to as cybersecurity.

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