Strong passwords are considerably harder to crack (or break) even with the powerful password-cracking software that is available today. Given enough time, the automated method can crack any password.
However, strong passwords are much harder to crack than weak passwords. A secure computer system has strong passwords for all user accounts.
A strong password:
Is at least nine characters long
Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name
Does not contain a complete dictionary word
Is significantly different from previous passwords. Passwords that increment (Password1, Password2, Password3 …) are not strong
Contains characters from each of the following four groups – upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numerals, and special characters
One of the concerns that people often have when it comes to creating complex passwords is a fear of forgetting them, particularly when there are several to remember. Naturally, a person should try to think of something that will be easy for them to memorize. One way to do this is to turn a sentence or phrase into something that is not easily recognized by others. To do this, use the first letter of every word in the sentence, replacing certain words with numbers or symbols. For example, the word "for" may be replaced with the number 4 or the word "number" with the # symbol. With this method, a password such as "Save the number for later in the year" may read St#4LITY.
