Last article covered in what ways your email account can be hacked. Since it is related to the password strength your email account has, I thought we should now cover how to create a strong password.

A strong password is one that is hard to guess. Oversimplifying some might say, yet it’s the basic definition of it. Therefore having your password be ” joe” when your email account is “joeblow@yahoo.com” is not very hard to guess. That would be at the extreme end of weak. So what’s at the other end?

A good, strong password:

1. Contains uppercase and lowercase characters,

2. Contains at least one number,

3. Contains at least one of the characters over the numbers in your keyboard ( !@#$%^&*() ),

4. Does not contain a word that can be found in the dictionary, and

5. Is at least 8 characters long.

OK so now we know what a strong password is, but we have a problem. How do we craft one that can ALSO be remembered? I mean, “g5OmCU)k” might be a strong password by definition, but who the hell is going to remember it? This is where mnemonics – a memory tool, any device or technique that aids information retention –  comes in handy.

Rather than going on a lengthy written explanation of how this all works, let me give you a link to a video that explains it all very well in under 4 minutes. Watch it and then come back to finish reading this article. Here’s the link to the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYzguTdOmmU

As you might have noticed, the last problem posed in the video, how to remember multiple passwords when you use one per each different authentication required, is solved by the use of a password manager. I personally use RoboForm to keep my 90+ passwords secure, and it even has a feature that will generate random strong passwords for me when required, which can then be stored and thus does not need to be remembered.

May your email account remain secure.