Creating a strong password

To ensure your account's security, create a strong password:

Use a different password for each of your important accounts 

Use a different password for each of your important accounts, like your email and online banking accounts. Re-using passwords is risky. If someone figures out your password for one account, it's possible they could get access to your personal information, or other online services like shopping or banking.

Use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols in your password

Using numbers, symbols and mix of upper and lower case letters in your password makes it harder for someone to guess your password. For example, an eight-character password with numbers, symbols and mixed-case letters is harder to guess because it has 30,000 times as many possible combinations than an eight-character password with only lower case letters.

Don't use personal information or common words

Create a unique password that's unrelated to your personal information and uses a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. For example, you can select a random word or phrase and insert letters and numbers into the beginning, middle, and end to make it extra difficult to guess (such as "sPo0kyh@ll0w3En"). Don’t use simple words or phrases like "password" or "letmein," keyboard patterns such as "qwerty" or "qazwsx," or sequential patterns such as "abcd1234" which make your password easier to guess.

Use a password manager

A password manager assists in generating, storing, and retrieving complex passwords from an encrypted database. Types of password managers include locally-installed software applications, online services that are accessed through website portals, and locally-accessed hardware devices that serve as keys. Depending on the type of password manager being used and the functionality offered by its developers, the encrypted database is either stored locally on the user's device or stored remotely through an online file hosting service. Password managers typically require its user to create and remember one "master" password to unlock and access to any information stored in its database.

Most common passwords of 2016

If your password is similar to any of the listed below, we recommend you change it immediately to avoid being compromised: