Creating Strong Passwords Can Be Super Easy!
— STEP 1: PICK A PASS PHRASE —
As the basis for your password, start by thinking of a favorite:
• Song Lyric or Title Like Pearl Jam’s lyric “Candle of Thought” or Beatles “All You Need Is Love”
• TV or Movie Quote Like “What’s in the Box…?!” from Se7en or “Gonna Need a Bigger Boat” from Jaws
• Motivational Quote Affirmations are great to type in a lot “Blogging Makes Sales Better!”
• Phrase you might use frequently. For example, telling a teen “Have To Before Want To”)
Any short sentence or phrase that’ll stick with you can be a starting point.
— STEP 2: MODIFY & STRENGTHEN —
Then change and “harden” your preferred passphrase by replacing things:
• ADD NUMBERS: try replacing all the vowels with numbers (but avoid adding “123” to the end!!)
• REPLACE SPACES: All the spaces in phrases can become dashes (-) or underscores (_) or periods (.)
• ADD SPECIAL CHARACTERS: add some punctuation (at the beginning and/or end) or other characters in place of letters.
— EXAMPLES —
So the passphrase examples given above can easily turn into strong PWs:
• Phrase: !!Have2B4Want2!! — 1 Trillion Years to crack
• Lyric: C@ndle-0-Th0ught? — 4 QUADRILLION Years to crack
• Quote: What’s_in_the_B0x…?! — 5 TREDECILLION Years to crack
• Motivation: Bloggin’Make3s-$ale$-Better! — 6 UNVIGINTILLION Years to crack
(And in case you were wondering how big that is: there are 66 zeroes in an unvigintillion!!)
