“In December 2009, a major password breach occurred that led to the release of 32 million passwords1. Further, the hacker posted to the Internet the full list of the 32 million passwords (with no other identifiable information).”

Here is a list of the five most common passwords.

1. 123456

2. 12345

3. 123456789

4. password

5. iloveyou

We all know the challenge.  The tougher a password is for someone else to guess, the tougher it is for us to remember.  Here are a few tips for creating strong passwords.

1. Use capital and lower case letter

2. Use numbers and special symbols

3. Make the password at least 8 characters long

Here is a strategy that I have used to create a password that is hard to guess and easy to remember.  Think of a sentence and use the first letter from each word to form the password.  For example, “I love to read books and visit facebook”, becomes the password Il2rb&vf.  That could be the password for facebook.  For ebay I could use “I love to read books and visit Ebay” or Il2rb&ve.  Get the picture?  You have a strong password, 8 characters, includes a capital letter, a number, and a special symbol.  This lets you have a unique password for each website and still have a pattern to help you remember.