Choosing a good password

Passwords are used to protect your system and data, and to maintain privacy. However, if your password is not kept secret or is too easy to guess, the security of your account can be compromised.

Safeguarding your password begins with choosing the right one. Here are some guidelines on selecting a strong password.

1. Choose a password that is easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess. For example, don't choose a password that is your name or name of one of your family members. Similarly, do not use your birthday(or those of your family members), PIN, license number, social security number, etc. as your password. People who know you can easily guess it.

2. Choose a password that is sufficiently long. A password can be a phrase that is easy to remember. The longer the password, the harder it is to guess. Keep it at least 8 characters long.

3. Choose a password that contains at least few digits. For example, a password like 'for my security' can be used as '4mySecurT', or 'dollardreams' can be used as '1dreamz43'.

4. Avoid passwords that are simple or common words. Passwords like 'test', 'mypassword', 'test123', '99999','12345678' etc. are very simple to guess.

Apart from choosing a good password, it is also important to protect it. Here are some tips on protecting your password:

- Do not share it with anyone;

- Do not write it down where it can be easily seen by others;

- Try not to use the same password for various accounts/services;

- Do change your password regularly. To learn how to change your Password, click here.

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