5 Simple Tricks for Seriously Secure Passwords

If you only needed one strong password, it would be easy to remember it for all your accounts. Unfortunately, password strength isn’t enough — you also need to create unique passwords to minimize your exposure to various cybersecurity risks.

The need for uniqueness makes it surprisingly complicated to keep track of passwords for all your accounts and maintain access to them on multiple devices. We’ll examine some of the most effective strategies for remembering secure passwords. You can also use a password manager to stay on top of your passwords.

Since they contain full words rather than a more random combination of characters, many people find them easier to remember. You can develop unique passphrases or rely on a password generator that supports passphrases.

With many websites and apps enforcing password requirements, it’s common for internet users to add numbers or special characters to the end of their passwords. Similarly, people tend to put capital letters at the beginning. For example, if you want to use the base password “biorhythm,” you might come up with something like Biorhythm123!.

Adding length and different types of characters is a good thing, but these kinds of patterns are well-known. You need to integrate these types of characters to protect your accounts fully. Fortunately, this shouldn’t make your passwords any more difficult to remember.

For example, !bIo3rHy2tHm1 would be much more difficult for someone to crack, even though it still follows an easily recognizable pattern.

Think about it like this — if someone knew that your password involved the word “biorhythm,” you wouldn’t feel very secure with the Biorhythm123! Password mentioned above. On the other hand, it would still probably take them hundreds of guesses to come up with !bIo3rHy2tHm1. This demonstrates you can use memorable patterns in your passwords without making them predictable.

Recalling specific strings of characters can be extremely difficult, especially when you’re working with many different accounts. You can make things a little easier by using a specific keyboard pattern that’s easier to remember than the characters themselves.

For example, you might use a pattern of one character, then three to the left, then two down, then four to the right. That could lead to a full password of 0987ujkl;’ — the keyboard pattern is more like a lock combination than a conventional password. This should make it easy to remember. At the same time, it contains 10 total characters including different types of characters, and it doesn’t include any recognizable words.

You could make things even more complex with other shapes and patterns. The password [p;’weds87ui is made up of three different squares from around the keyboard.

By placing the mnemonic on the physical keyboard instead of within the characters themselves, you could add memorability without making a password easy to guess. But you still need to watch out for obvious strings and patterns like qwerty.

Similarly, you can stack multiple words on top of each other instead of placed in sequential order. This strategy comes with most of the same benefits of a typical passphrase, but it makes the password much more difficult to work out.

Instead of i-like-marvel-movies from above, you could use something like ilmm-iao-krv-evi-ee-ls. This password starts with the first letters of each of the four words, then the second letters, and so on.

On one hand, this password is essentially as easy to remember as i-like-marvel-movies. As long as you remember the four words, you shouldn’t have any trouble putting the whole password together.

Still, the new password is virtually indecipherable to anyone who doesn’t understand the pattern. Most people would have trouble committing ilmm-iao-krv-evi-ee-ls to memory, even if they saw it written out in plain text. This is a great alternative to conventional passphrases for anyone who doesn’t feel secure with a password that contains full words.

Remembering all of your passwords is great if you can pull it off, but most people struggle to keep track of their passwords even if they use good strategies. With typical internet users maintaining many different online accounts, staying on top of passwords on your own isn’t a realistic option.

Password managers do most of the work for you and eliminate the stress and confusion that comes with remembering passwords. In general, password managers accounts are secured with a single master password. The master password controls access to all the other passwords, so you don’t need to remember the rest as long as you recall the master.

Furthermore, top password managers can create strong passwords, analyze your existing passwords, and perform a variety of other helpful functions. Look at our list of the best password managers for more information.

• Dashlane: How To Remember Hard-To-Remember Passwords
• Federal Trade Commission Consumer Advice: Password Checklist
• National Library of Medicine: Create a Strong and Easy-to-Remember Password
• U.S. General Services Administration: Requirements for Passwords

• How To Create a Strong Password
• Most Common Passwords: Latest Statistics
• Most Popular Password Cracking Techniques: Learn How To Protect Your Privacy
• The Best Password Managers With Two-Factor Authentication