Everything is protected by a password in the online world. Email, log in to Amazon or any other platform, account with your online bank, and the list goes on. How you keep your accounts safe and your personal information out of the hands of less savory people is your password. Passwords that are easy to guess and can be easily hacked are often used by people. In order to make your password more secure, here are a few things you can do. Longer is better: The longer your password, the harder it is to guess using brute force hacking. This type of hacking is where, by going through every possible combination, a computer just starts guessing your password. Increase the length of your password from 6 to 10. This century, you’re talking about the need for a supercomputer to crack your password. Don’t use this in your password: Any name like your, family members, pet, etc. Birthdays Last 4 digits of your SSN Phone numbers Numbers associated with you Use more than just letters and number: The more character types you use, the more difficult it becomes to guess your password. There are 36 possible characters your password can contain, just using lower case letters and numbers. Add in a letter of capital, and you’ve just increased that to 62 characters. Add some special symbols now and you now have 95 characters of potential that your password might contain. This is a significant boost that will make your password strong. Avoid using common words: Remembering a password that uses a word or phrase that you know is easier to use, but that also makes it easier to guess. Since a password, which is a word, is easier to remember, most people use it. And this is familiar to hackers. They can eliminate password options that are not phrases, making it easier to guess. There are even tables that have the most common passwords used, called rainbow tables. By using these methods hackers can guess your password more quickly. Tips for better passwords: Make it 10 characters or longer Use numbers, upper and lower case characters, as well as special symbols. Use a random sequence of characters rather than words Use different passwords for different sites