7 Tips for Creating a Secure Online Password

1> DON'T PICK PASSWORDS. Generate it randomly. You won't be tempted to skimp on it.

2> DON'T MAKE PASSWORDS SIMPLE. A strong password must contain lowercase and uppercase letters, digits and symbols.

3> DON'T USE SHORT PASSWORDS. The longer the password, the less likely it will be guessed. 8 characters is the shortest.

4> DON'T REUSE PASSWORDS. I got hacked because I stupidly reused my password with my e-mail address.

5> DON'T MEMORIZE PASSWORDS. Random, strong, long, unique passwords are hard to remember. And if you have 50 accounts, like I do, they're impossible. I use LASTPASS.COM with a strong password. It fills in my username and password for each site I visit, so I don't have to type it. Despite the recent hack, Lastpass did not have any problems. All information is stored and transported encrypted between your computer and their computer.

You also need 5 different e-mail addresses to reduce the problem of phishing. They are:

1> Personal - for friends and family.

2> Commercial - for buying legit stuff from legit stores

3> Financial - for anything to do with saving and making money

4> Junk mail - for subscribing to newsletters and connecting with people that are not friends.

5> Spam - for all other uses. This is the one that it won't matter if you lose it. This is the one that will probably be spammed the most.

Don't use your name for the junk mail & spam addresses. Spammers love to combine names with e-mail extensions to guess at a hit. It costs them almost nothing to send billions.

Jimmy of MD 1:38PM June 30, 2011