Tip of the Month: How to create a secure – but memorable - Password

If you want to create a password for your workstation or a website that is both secure and memorable, you should always follow these crucial Do’s And Don’ts.

DO

• Use a mixture of upper and lower case letters
• Combine letters, numbers and symbols
• Replace letters with special characters or numbers (i.e. ‘@’ could replace ‘a’, ‘1’ or ‘!’ could replace ‘I’ etc)
• Use words or phrases that are easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess
• Make sure the password is at least 8 characters long, and ideally, around 14.
• Try and make a password that uses the entire keyboard and not just the most common letters.

DON’T

• Use dictionary words
• Use all lower-case or all upper-case
• Use a password that people could easily guess (such as your own name, a pet’s name etc)
• Use a sequence of letters from the keyboard (i.e. qwerty or 12345)

So for example, if you were a big fan of Derby County, ‘derby’ would a terrible password, but Com30nTh3R@m$ (as in Come on The Rams) would be exceptionally secure.

And if that does happen to be your password, please accept our apologies!