Your password needs to be strong. There are a few schools of thought when it comes to thinking up passwords, so here I am going to cover five ways. Whatever you choose, there should be a minimum of 8 characters in your password. If possible, these should be a mixture of lower and upper case letters, numbers and special characters such as a $, *, &, @ etc.
The simplest one to remember is choosing three random words, which mean something to you but would be impossible to guess for an outsider. For example, if your favorite food is cake, your favorite vacation was in Hawaii and you just love baseball, then as much as my spell check hates it, cakeHawaiibaseball could be considered a reasonable password.
Another way to choose a password is by using a combination of letters, numbers and special characters. Using everyday words can make it easy to remember. For example, Elephantsrock is bad, but El3ph@nt5r0ck is strong. To get El3ph@nt5r0ck, I replaced an e with a three, the a with @ symbol, s with five and o with zero. All the replacement numbers look like their letter counterparts to make it easy to remember.
The third way is to choose a phrase, which you will remember and take the first letters of each word. For example: The scariest movie I have seen is Omen! Once you have settled on a phrase just add a special character and number. I saw the film when I was about 9 so that’s the number I will choose here. This password would be: TsmihsiO!9
Another way to choose a password is similar to the above method but involves an aid. Those familiar with the 2011 movie Unknown starring Liam Neeson may recognize this. If you have a favorite book then choose a passage and from that passage choose a word. For example, if the word is in the 22nd line on page 150, two words along and the word is mammoth, the word would be 150222mammoth, or any combination of these elements that is easy for you to remember.
Another method to create a highly secure password is to create a spreadsheet on your computer and record all your passwords. The secret here is that you only type half of the password in your file. What you record needs to be random with a combination of characters. The reason that this method is secure is that half of the password is only stored in your head. It does not matter where you put the memorised half of the password into the complete password (at the beginning or end) as long as it is not written down. An example could be:
Memorised half (only in your head): wind
Recorded half (in spreadsheet): Hydf54j@#f
Full password while logging in: windHydf54j@#f
As you can see this would be difficult to guess. You should not store it in a password vault service unless you put it behind something protected by 2-step authentication.
Tip
If you are like me and are liable to forget passwords, a good way to cheat is to use a service such as LastPass. Sign up at lastpass.com and use their service to either generate passwords for you or to remember passwords you have made. You will need one password to use LastPass but the service will remember all your other login information and can automatically log you in to websites.
This way you can have different passwords for all the websites you visit and only have to remember the one! The service will also warn you when websites have been known to be compromised and ask you to change your password for them.
I would like to say a word of warning though. If you use this service make sure that you set up the password recovery options. You will need to install the LastPass plugin and have setup the recovery information. The service is very secure and if you have not done this and you have lost or forgotten your password, then there is no way of getting back your password database. You can generate a one-time password for emergencies.
To be very secure with LastPass, set up two-factor authentication. This means that you will need both a password and your phone (or other physical device) to be able to login. A hacker will not usually have access to your phone and if they do steal it from you, you will still be protected by the password. If your phone was stolen, you would then automatically change your password and use the recovery information to regain access to Lastpass.