How To Create a Secure Password You Can Remember

By Ven On May 20, 2010 Under Advice, How To

Everybody has passwords; at home, at work, everywhere you look. If you’re active on the internet, you probably have more passwords than you can count. The question is… Are your passwords secure?

If you’re like a majority of the people mentioned in this article, you’re passwords are probably not as secure as you think. The article mentions that “even though hacking techniques have become better, users of today are no wiser than those 20 years ago.” I don’t agree with that statement. I don’t think the problem is lack of knowledge about the risks of insecure passwords. I think the problem is people not understanding how to create truly secure passwords that are also easy to remember.

Most recommendations tell you not to use names of family members or pets, birth dates, phone numbers, etc., but people use them anyway. Why? Because THOSE are the passwords that are easiest to remember. With those, you don’t need to resort to password keepers that aren’t always available when you need them or worse, written lists, which can be lost or stolen. So, how can you use the things you remember to create passwords that are secure?

Here’s what I do.

First, pick a name or word that means something to you. Something easy to remember. For my example, I’ll use the name Tamera. Take the word you picked and convert each vowel into the number that it looks like. You can do this for a(@), e (3, which looks like E flipped over), i(1) and 0 (zero). There’s isn’t one for u. So, Tamera would end up as T@m3r@. Make sure to keep the capital T, because using a mix of capitals and lowercase letters is a plus. Now, pick what I call a separator symbol, such as #, $, %, or &, and place it after your word. Now you have T@m3r@#. Finally, pick a number that means something to you. Just about anyone who has a bank card will also have a PIN number and most people don’t share that number with anyone, so it would make a good addition to the password or choose another number that means something to you. Now, add that number to the password you have so far and you end up with T@m3r@#1234.

According to passwordmeter.com, this password is very strong and gets a score of 100%, because it correctly uses a mix of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers and symbols, yet it should be easy to remember because you used words and numbers that already have meaning for you. It won’t, however, be easy for someone else to guess. Even someone who knows you and knows a lot of the names and numbers you might pick from wouldn’t have an easy time figuring it out. The combination of different pieces of personal data, vowel conversion, and separator symbol make your password very hard to guess.

Using your new passwords might take a little longer at first because you’ll have to pause and think about what number to convert each vowel to, but you’ll get used to it in no time and it’s a lot easier than trying to remember random strings of letters and numbers that have no meaning to you at all. The added security is worth the effort.