Just imagine this. Suppose the password you use for your e-mail provider was stolen. How horrible would the consequences be?

Unfortunately many of us use the same password for many different web sites and services, use passwords that are easy to crack, and rarely change our passwords.

So, perhaps a crook might take the password you use to access your email and create havoc. Perhaps the password would let the person shop at Amazon, bid on auctions at eBay, and even transfer money from your bank account.

Here are a few tips that you can use that will make it a lot more difficult to ruin your life if a password becomes compromised:

  1. Make sure your passwords contain a mixture of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters.
  2. Change your passwords regularly.
  3. Make sure your passwords are fairly long (at least eight characters).
  4. Avoid using the names of your children, pets, spouses, and lovers — even if you like them!
  5. Avoid any word that can be found in the dictionary — even foreign ones.
  6. Never use social security numbers, telephone numbers, or dates.
  7. Don’t even think about making your password the same as your user name.
  8. Don’t use the name of the website. (Amazon is a really bad password!)
  9. Use a different password for each site.
  10. Never use one of the most commonly used passwords!

The top ten most commonly used passwords are

  1. 123456
  2. password
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. abc123
  6. 123456789
  7. 111111
  8. 1234567
  9. iloveyou
  10. adobe123

Only one of the top ten is in the dictionary!