How to Make Bulletproof Passwords

By Ashley S. • Jul 17, 2024

Here's the hard truth... online, there are a lot of bad actors. They want your information and your money and are willing to break into your accounts to get it.

So, you need strong passwords. But what does a strong password look like?

Strong Passwords Are Necessary

Cybercriminals and hackers attempt to break into others' accounts on a near constant basis.

You may think you're not a target simply because there are so many other people out there and much larger targets. But here's the secret about hackers and other cybercriminals: they're lazy.

lazy on computer

More accurately, they don't want to spend weeks trying to break into one account. They tend to go after the easy targets, the low-hanging fruit, the easy-pickings, if you will. So, their victims tend to be ordinary people who don't realize how vulnerable they truly are.

A strong password is one of the best deterrents against cybercriminals around. No, it can't totally prevent someone hacking you, but it's the same logic behind locking your doors at night; it may not be foolproof, but it's certainly better than leaving the door wide open.

How to Make a Strong Password

Here are the tips and tricks you need to make your passwords the strongest and most secure they can possibly be:

Don't use a single word password or a bad password.

For the record, a "bad password" would be something like "123456" or "password." Sadly, those aren't jokes but actual passwords people use. Some cybersecurity companies estimate it takes less than a second for hackers to crack passwords like this.

stupidly easy

A single word password would be something like "broom." Hackers can use special tools to cycle through all words in the dictionary as they attempt to log into victims' accounts, so it takes only a few minutes at most to crack a single word, even if the word has symbol or number substitutions like this: "br00m."

Moreover, do not use personal information like birthdays, children's names, or other information someone could discover just by checking social media. Hackers can and will check your social media to glean what they can and use that information against you.

Don't autosave your passwords.

This is just asking for trouble long-term; if someone gets onto your browser where your password is saved, you've basically done the work of being hacked yourself. As convenient as it is, don't do it.

Make pass phrases, not passwords.

This is the trick that hackers really don't want you to know: a single password can be cracked pretty easily, but a full phrase? That's so much harder to crack.

This is because most hackers will try to use a "brute-force" attack to get into victims' accounts, meaning they'll just keep trying passwords until they hit on the right one. So, a longer password with more possible letter-number-word combinations means more time to crack and more deterrence. Further, a full phrase is almost impossible to guess or crack.

Write a phrase when prompted to make a password. Here's an example (but don't use this one, that's asking for trouble): "R4dHorseisRidingAway." This password, when tested with a password strength checker, should take an estimated 23 centuries to crack. That's a strong lock most hackers won't bother trying to crack.

Keep your passwords secret.

This seems obvious, but it's true: Never share your password with other people, even with your IT department at work. If someone asks you for your password, immediately assume it's a scam and do not share it.

shush

Try to avoid writing down your password. This is another reason pass phrases can often work better than passwords as you're more likely to remember a pass phrase without needing to write it down.