Good password management practices
Perhaps the single most important thing to remember when creating a new password is make the password hard to guess, but easy to remember. That’s easier said than done, but follow some guidelines below and you will start using passwords that are more secure than what you’re doing now.

A good password is any combination of letters and numbers that cannot be found in a dictionary. Your password should be at least 6 to 8 characters long and should not have any personal information such as your name, child’s name, occupation, telephone number, address or birth date. A combination of letters, numbers and symbols will work best. Make sure you use a mix of capital and lower-case letters to make your password even more difficult to crack.

Change your password regularly – once every three months at a minimum.
Always log off when you have finished using a site and close your browser to prevent others gaining access to any personal details online.

Make your existing passwords more secure. There are several techniques you can employ to make your existing passwords more difficult for hackers to crack. Whatever method you choose you should remember to make it an easy and understandable method so you will have stronger passwords without much more effort.

1. Use the first letter from every word in your favourite expression, or line in a story, poem or movie. For example, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” could lead you to the following password: PnAttMBtC.

2. Choose a word as your password, but then substitute similar looking numbers for letters in your passwords. For example, Football may become F00t8a77. Here is a sample list of numbers that could be substituted for letters:

O…0
I …1
Z…2
E…3
H…4
S…5
G…6
L…7
B…8

You don’t need to associate every number with a letter. What is important is that you remember your list of associated letters and numbers.