Every day it becomes more important that your information is secure on the internet. Secure passwords are pretty much the only thing protecting your personal accounts. If someone can figure out your password its that much easier for them to figure out your other passwords, or heaven forbid they get into your email where they can reset your other passwords preventing you from accessing your own accounts. Until recently I was still using the same password I came up with in middle school. That’s right, password, singular. Instead of creating new and different passwords I would just tack numbers and symbols onto the end of the one I was using anytime a website tried to encourage me to use a better password. It’s time to update my personal system so I thought I would help you update yours. Write Down Your Passwords on a Sheet of Paper Ahhhh, scary, why? It’s okay. This is just a temporary step so if you forget a password during this process you can remember what it is. It will also help you remember which passwords you have updated properly and which ones you haven’t. Get Rid of Any Passwords Saved on Your Computer Your computer is just trying to be helpful when it offers to save your password. But if someone steals your computer and they can get past your password (which face it, probably isn’t very secure) they now have access to every account you use. This article from Boston University will walk you through how to delete these passwords from your browser and turn off the recommendation entirely. It’s a little scary to see your passwords fully visible to the world. This is a great time to add to your list if they aren’t already on there. Then get rid of them. Use a Password Manager Password managers aren’t for everyone and it’s good to find one that you trust. Lifehacker has a great list of the Five Best Password Managers. I personally use LastPass to keep track of all of my passwords for me. I can log into it on any computer and have all of my passwords ready for me… if I can’t remember them. It can also help generate very secure passwords when I want it to. However, then I have to use LastPass because I will not be able to remember them. Change Your Passwords I was going to write about how often you should change your passwords but then I did a quick google search and according to LifeHacker (I love their articles). You really don’t need to change your passwords unless you suspect someone might be logging into your stuff. So password changes are really only necessary if you share or have shared a computer with someone you don’t trust. It’s also important to remember to log out of websites if you’re using a shared computer and don’t want anyone in your accounts. Create a Long But Easy-to-Remember Password Using a Phrase The longer the password the better. It’s just basic math. For each additional character in your password a computer has to guess that many more combinations. That’s why websites are requiring longer and longer passwords. They’re trying their best to help you stay secure. I don’t remember where I read this method but I thought it was a clever way of putting together a password. First, you think of a phrase (and you can kill two birds with one stone if that phrase involves a number). Then you pick a piece of punctuation. Anything paired with a number, comma, period, colon, semi-colon, and there are others but you get the point. You have options. Then you use a code to represent the website you are using the password for. So here’s an example of a Facebook account password. My phrase is “I have two dogs and one cat.” You then use the first letter of each word, capitalizing where you feel necessary and if there’s a number in it you can use the number. Then use your punctuation of choice, then something specific to the website you are using it for. Ih2d&1c.Fbook Then when I make a twitter account I can still use my phrase and punctuation just changing the code. Ih2d&1c.tw Or for Instagram. Ih2d&1c.gram It’s not a perfect system but it’s better than using your dog’s name and the number 1. Password Tips All email addresses get their own completely unique password. All banking websites get their own completely unique password. If a website seems a little sketchy or you just want to try it out, use a completely random throw-away password. You can always reset it through your email if you forget. Write Your Passwords Down on a Sheet of Paper Yep, still scary. But if something happened to you (or a loved one whose stuff you would become responsible for) it would be really good to have a list of their passwords. Especially their main computer password along with their phone passcode. My husband and I have a plan to write down all of our passwords, and put them in our firebox. If you don’t have a firebox or don’t trust the person you could always hide the passwords somewhere else and tell someone you do trust. You can put them in a book that’s never going to get read, or in the tax return file from two years ago (you have to keep it but you’re never going to need it). I thought about creating a password keeper printable (and I still might in the future), but then thought why bother when there’s already a ton out there. I found this one from Sparkles of Sunshine. It looks pretty and you can download it right from the page. Security Answers Questionaire While I was looking for the printable it reminded me that I need to make a list of security answers. You know. Stuff like… Since you may not know all of these about your spouse/partner it’s a good idea to get them written down as they come up. Some websites have really weird security questions. Try to choose questions where the answers are a little harder to figure out. It’s easy to choose the easy ones but it’s also easy for someone to check your facebook and see where you spent your honeymoon or figure out your favorite sports team. Note: Since writing this a lot of people have mentioned just making up answers to these questions. That’s an awesome idea, as long as you can remember your answers. I recently got locked out of an account because I used “childhood best friend” and couldn’t remember if I used my best friend from elementary school, or my best friend from high school. Wow, That Was a Lot I feel like I learned quite a bit while researching passwords for this article. I hope you learned something too.