Password security can be tricky. Creating and remembering secure passwords can be irritating, but the results of having a simple password — getting hacked and losing control of your information — are scary. The good news? A strong and secure password that will protect your website is just a few steps away.

Password security: We all know it’s important, and we all do it wrong. Everyone has too many passwords to remember and so we end up falling back into the old ruts of bad, insecure password creation. So, we’re here today with some helpful reminders about creating secure passwords and helping you keep track of them.
What makes a secure password?
Easy enough: The more complex the password, the better and more secure that password is. For each character you add to a password, you make that password exponentially harder to crack. When you add a number, uppercase, lowercase, symbol or special character, it’s even better. It’s best to avoid names, numbers with an association to you (like phone numbers, social security numbers, addresses or birthdays), or even actual words. All of these things make a password easier to crack/guess and aren’t nearly as safe and secure as a jumbled up line of gibberish that reads like it’s from the fever dream of a mad man. The only problem is that the more complex something is, the harder it is to remember.
So how do I remember my password?
What’s the best way to create a secure password that you can still remember? One way is to come up with a phrase and use the first letters of each word to form a password. Maybe it’s a favorite song, saying or motto. For instance, maybe you’re always saying, “I can’t wait to go home at 5!” That could make a great password: Icwtgha5! It’s easy for you to remember, but it’s not easy for someone else to figure out. It has uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers — and even a special character.
So what happens when you get tired of making up phrases? When you have 50 different accounts, even easy-to-remember phrases may not work, because it’s hard to remember which password you used for what. You can use a free password generator online to create complex passwords, but then you’re back to trying to remember what they are and where they’re used. A simple solution to this is to use a password manager.
What’s a password manager and how do I use it?
A password manager saves all of your passwords in one secure area and allows you to auto-complete log-in forms so that there’s no memorization required. There are several free password managers (with optional premium features) available out there. LastPass, Dashlane and 1Password are a few of the more popular ones. They’re easy-to-use and an amazing timesaver when it comes to logging into multiple accounts with a unique and secure password for each one.
Of course, all good things have a trade-off. With any password manager, you’ll still need to remember your master password that grants you access to your password manager account. This master password needs to be an extremely secure password so that no one can easily gain access to all of your passwords — take extra care in creating and memorizing it, and never email it or share it electronically.
Hopefully these helpful tips will make it easier to not only create secure passwords, but also help manage, and remember those secure passwords. Having a safe password will help keep your site protected — but what if you want to go the extra mile? Keep extremely important information safe by creating a database backup recovery plan; Infomedia can help you set one up today to protect your information and give you peace of mind. Want to talk through what’s involved? Give us a call or send us an email at support@infomedia.com, and we’ll set you up with a free consultation.