Tips, tricks, and ideas for creating secure passwords
1) Long randomized numbers make passwords harder to crack, but totally random ones can also be hard to remember, so here are a few suggestions for things to use that will be randomized but won't involve you having to memorize a new number.
Include a long random number that you already have memorized (library card number, school ID number, someone else's phone number). Just be careful not to use numbers that need to stay safe themselves (like your credit card or social security number).
Use birthdays or other dates you have memorized to make a 6 or 8 digit number or combine dates to makes an even longer one (do not use your own birthday).
Use phone numbers you have memorized (not your own).
Take any of my previous suggestions and combine them, flip them backwards, and/or otherwise distort them.
2) For the part of your password that is letters, it's good to either use a randomized (or semi-randomized) string of letters or pick words that you'll remember but that aren't connected to you anywhere else online.
Use names or nicknames of pets you used to have.
Use nicknames for yourself that you don't go by (generally something you only used with a small group of people for a short time and never anything you went by online).
Use names of teachers you've had (you could combine this with the year you had them).
Use different people's initials (not your own) and combine several to get a random string.
If any of these ares something you've posted about online, do not use them in a password (like don't use your childhood cat's name if you made a website for him when you were 12).
Something I see commonly suggested online to get a randomized string is to make up a sentence and use the first letter of every word (in its correct capitalization) and including all punctuation.
If you know another language that uses the same alphabet (or transliterate it), use a word/name in that or combine it with any of my other suggestions.
Use random capitalization in your words/strings (if you know morse code, you could do a morse code message with uppercase and lowercase letters).
Just like with numbers, these will be even more secure if you combine them, flip them backwards, and/or otherwise alter them to make them even harder to guess.
3) Make sure to always include special characters. Using multiple special characters and including them throughout the password is good.
4) Make sure your password is nice and long (more stuff in it makes it harder to guess). Include numbers, letters, and special characters throughout the password.
5) Finally, even if you reuse certain passwords on multiple different online accounts, always make sure the password to your email address is completely different from everything else that you use so that if you need to do a password reset, that account should be safe (do this for every single email account you have).
I hope you find these useful and helpful in creating your own passwords.
