With more and more of your life going online, creating secure passwords for all of your accounts—from banking and credit cards to facebook and email—is all the more important.
Luckily, there are a couple of things you can do to increase the security of your passwords, while still making them easy to remember.
Tip #1: Choose a password that has distinct chunks like a two- or three-word phrase without any spaces. That way when it's time to change your password, you can just replace one of the words. For example, if you start with foursaltypeanuts as your password, you can simply change it to foursaltycashews to make it easy to remember.
Tip #2: This idea comes from Lifehacker reader calculusrunner. Instead of coming up with an elaborate phrase, simply shift your fingers one key to the right on your keyboard. For example, if your password is "password" (which is number one on the top 500 worst passwords, by the way), it becomes "[sddeptf" instead. Clever, right?
What's your trick for coming up with a secure password that's still easy to remember?
Related:
Scams Even You Could Fall For—And How to Avoid Them