Choosing a good password will help to keep your computer (and your personal information) safe. If your password is easy to guess, someone may figure it out and gain access to your computer or your data. People could even use computers to systematically try to guess your password, so even a password that would be difficult for a human to guess might be easy to break. Here are some tips for choosing a good password:
Use a mixture of upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols in the password.
This makes it more difficult to guess; there are more symbols to choose from, so more possible passwords that someone would have to check when trying to guess yours.
Have at least 8 characters in your password.
The more characters your password contains, the longer it should take for someone to guess it.
Don't use common words or phrases as your password.
Password crackers will try these first.
Use different passwords for different things.
Password crackers will try these first. The most common password is "password" - people can guess passwords like this very quickly!
Use different passwords for different accounts.
If you use the same password for all of your accounts, anyone who guesses that password will be able to access all of your accounts immediately.
It can be difficult to remember lots of passwords, however. Though not as secure as using a different password for everything, it may be easier to use the same password for things that don't matter (like passwords for websites), and different passwords for important things (like your online banking account and your email).
Tips on what makes a secure password.