One of the most important ways to secure your data and protect your personal information is to know how to create and use strong passwords. Using strong passwords and changing them regularly can help keep you safe from attackers who try to access your accounts by guessing or cracking your passwords.
A strong password is difficult to guess, has 8 or more characters, isn't a word in the dictionary (regardless of language), and includes numbers and special characters.
If you need help creating a strong password, here are some suggestions:
- Pick a phrase you can easily remember. Use the first or last letter of each word and put it together for a password. For example: Lawrence Technological University: Theory and Practice since 1932 password would be: ltu:taps1
- Capitalize some of the letters: hAveAGooDDay
- Use numbers in place of vowels: secr1tP4ssw0rd
- Remove some letters from a word or misspell it intentionally: Xpearimntl
- Include special characters: what_t!me?izit
Remember to guard your identity and data by following these practices:
- Don't share your password with anyone. It's a violation of Lawrence Tech Computing policy to share your username and password information with anyone.
- Don't store passwords on your computer, have your browser remember them, or leave them written on pieces of paper around your computer.
- Use different passwords for different systems. Don't use the same password for every website and account you have. If you use the same password for all your accounts and it's compromised, then all your accounts are compromised.
- Don't create passwords using personal information like birthdays, names of children, pets, phone numbers, or addresses. Social networking sites make your personal information widely available and your password may be easy to guess.
- Make your passwords really long. The longer a password is, the harder it is to crack.
- Change your passwords regularly.
- Change your password after international travel and after using a non-secure network.