How can I create a strong password?

To keep your account safe, here are a few tips on how to create a strong password:

Use a unique password for each of your important accounts

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking accounts. Re-using passwords is risky. If someone figures out your password for one account, it's possible they could get access to your personal information, or other online services like shopping or banking.

Use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols in your password

Using numbers, symbols and mix of upper and lower case letters in your password makes it harder for someone to guess your password. For example, an eight-character password with numbers, symbols and mixed-case letters is harder to guess because it has 30,000 times as many possible combinations than an eight-character password with only lower case letters.

Don’t use personal information or common words as a password

Create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information and uses a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, you can select a random word or phrase and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as "sPo0kyh@ll0w3En"). Don’t use simple words or phrases like "password" or "letmein," keyboard patterns such as "qwerty" or "qazwsx," or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234" which make your password easier to guess.

Keep your passwords secure

Don't leave notes with your passwords to various sites on your computer or desk, where people can easily steal them and use them to compromise your accounts. If you choose to save passwords in a file on your computer, create a name for the file that won't give it away. If you have a difficult time remembering multiple passwords, use a trusted password manager. Be sure to spend a few minutes checking out reviews and reputations of password manager services.