Despite fingerprint scanning, voice identification, and other advances in recognition technology, passwords remain the most common choice for securing everything from company databases to personal mobile phones. You will want to come up with passwords that is easy to remember and yet difficult for anyone else to crack. These steps can help you generate easy to remember passwords.

1. Think of your favorite phrase from a book, the movies, or your grandpa. Make sure it has at least seven words. Two examples include “A penny saved is a penny earned” or “Help me Obi Wan Kenobi you’re my only hope”.
2. Create your password from the initials of the phrase and use capital letters for words that are capitalized. Using the previous two examples gives the initials Apsiape or HmOWKymoh. Note that longer phrases produce longer passwords, which make them harder to crack.
3. If your password requires a number, count the number of letters only in each phrase. Then attach the number to the beginning or end of the initials to produce a base password. For example, the first phrase has 25 letters to make the base 25Apsiape. The second has 33 letters to make the password HmOWKymoh33.
4. Create a unique password for each website or device by attaching the name of the site to either the beginning or end of the base password. For example, if you use the first base password with Google, your site password can be Google25Apsiape. Using the same base with Yahoo produces Yahoo25Apeiaps.
5. If you prefer to create a new password for each site, you can write down a mnemonic with the site name, so you can remember the phrase for that site. If you used the first password with Yahoo, you might write down Yahoo: Money. If you used the second password with Google, you could write down Google: Jedi. Even if someone were to obtain your list, the mnemonics would be meaningless to them.

An easy-to-remember password is just one way to protect your personal and company’s interests. If you need more ideas, contact us and we’ll be happy to share.