How to create strong and unique passwords that you can remember

These days we have to log in to a bunch of websites that we use it on a daily basis such as email accounts, social networking sites, online forums, shopping sites, banking sites, and many other different types of websites. Here we face a difficult situation of choosing a good password that is easy to remember and also difficult to crack. There is a confusion whether to give a weak password that is easy to remember or a strong password that is hard to remember.

Here are some rules and guidelines that will help you to overcome the confusion when creating strong passwords that are unique and secure.

The two important rules for creating stronger passwords:

1. Password Length: The more longer the password is the more stronger the password. The password strength improves with more characters. Adding a character will add to the strength of the password by 62. Any password that is more than 8 character length is sufficient but more than 10 character length is good.

2. Password Complexity: The more complex the password is the more stronger the password. The password should contain atleast one character from each of the following group. The password strength improves with a combination of characters from all these groups.

a. Upper case character.

b. Lower case character.

c. Numbers.

d. Special characters.

Guidelines for creating an easy to remember, strong, and unique password:

1. Choose a memorable sentence, a pass phrase, quotation, easy-to-remember saying, or a line from a nursery rhyme that you can remember all the time.  Take the first letter from each word. For example the sentence, This Is How I Like To Log Into The Web Site!

Examples of some other pass phrases:

Can't See the Forest Through the Trees:  cstfttt

Put Up or Shut Up:  puosu

If the Shoe Fits, Wear It:  itsfwi

You Can Lead a Horse to Water:  yclahtw

The Last Mile Is Always Uphill: tlmiau

I Think, Therefore I Am:  ittia

Oh Say Can You See:  oscys

My Dog Freeway Loves Cheddar Cheese: mdflcc

2. Take the first letters of the words in the above sentence, which will be TihilTlitwS

Here you can alternate between uppercase and lowercase characters as you like and note down their position.

3. You can add a number at the end of the password for a given group of websites like 58 to an email website, 31 to a social networking, and 52 to a shopping website etc. You can choose any number according to your like with more digits. Here the password will be TihilTlitwS31

4. Now you can include a combination of characters of the website name that you are going to log in at the end of the password. For a website such as Facebook it will be like 'fAc' at the end of the password. You can give any number of character from the website name for password creation. Here the password will be TihilTlitwS31fAc

5. Scramble the password. Add a special character to the password such as an exclamation sign at the end of the pass phrase character combination. Give a scrambling character at the place where you find it appropriate. You can select any special character accordingly. Our password will now be TihilTlitwS!31fAc

Some scrambling characters that you can use for password creation:

! excitement and strong emotion
@  the word “at” in place of letter A
# number, pound sign
$ money, value, the letter S

% a part of something
^ raised eyebrow, upside down V
& the word “and”, this and that

* sunny, bright, starry

( the letter c, the moon
) the moon, anything lunar

+ adding one thing to another

- subtract one thing from another

= balance, equanimity, this equals that
< this is less than that, this is younger than that
> this is greater than that, this is older than that
? unknown, variable, questionable
~ water, wind

6. You can also replace the regular character or word with a special character or number.

Replace @ in place of ‘a’

Replace $ character in place of 's'

Replace % character in place of a space

Replace 0 in place of ‘o’

Replace ! in place of  ‘i’

Replace 4 in place of for

Replace 2 in place of to

Here we have used all the character combinations and the length of password is more than 10 character, which makes it a stronger and an easier to remember password which is distinctive for a website.

Now you can check the strength of the password with a password strength checker. Here is one for that Password meter