Randomly, you’re minding your own business and you get that dreaded text from a friend or a relative. You sent them a Facebook message that contains bestiality, or you tagged them in a spam photo for some RayBan® sunglasses. Sadly, you have to go through the long process of getting your account. But it could get worst. This also can happen to your email account and your BANK ACCOUNT. But there’s good news, I have the solution. It’s simple changing your password. OK, It’s not simple. The real solution is to make a long password or what we techies call a “super password.” Your accounts are more secure if you have a 12-character or more password, because any password that has 8-characters or less is much easier to crack. How so? Easy, hackers have become more sophisticated when trying to break into your account. If you use a password that has 8-characters, it only takes the hacker less than 2 hours to crack it. If the user creates a password of 12 characters, it will take the hacker almost 17,000 years to crack oppose to 11-characters will take roughly 180 years, so every character counts. The more characters, the more impossible years it will take for them to crack.

Some websites are allowing users to create longer passwords. They understand that their customers want to have that extra level of security. Also computers are getting more advanced, it’s necessary for people to have longer passwords. I know that this isn’t an easy process. They are websites like passwordsgenerator.net that can help you to create a very strong password. My only is issue that those passwords are different to remember because it’s just combination of characters that you have to decode in a way that you can remember it. The best thing to do is to create a password that is a phrase or a full sentence. This way it will be easier to remember. I have created some suggestions that you can use it. Although, it’s recommended to have more than 11 characters and some websites recommend more than 15 characters, all of these passwords contain more than 20 characters. I have listed 6 subjects with 2 examples each:

1. Favorite Book/Author

SavannahIsW8ing2xhale!

2. Saying/Quote

Trust!iAlwaysKeepIt100%

TheLordIsMyShepardPsalm23:1

3. Personal or Historic Event

iPaid$87.51^2cBeyonce

1stBlackPresident01/20/09

4. Car

*1965*FordMustangGTV-8

$273.85/monthHondaAccord

5. Song

Let’sGroove2night-EWF

I’mSearching4ARealLove(MJB)

6. Accomplishment

Thanx2J.J.SmithiLost65lbs!

iGr+u8edw/a3.82GPA@FAMU

Of course, I don’t suggest that you take these passwords verbatim, but you can take the ideas and tailor them to your liking. As you can see, the phrases also include capital letters, numbers, and other characters like periods, commas, dashes, parentheses, etc. My current password has only 16 characters and I haven’t any issues with my accounts being hacked, but it doesn’t have any special characters so I’ll be changing it really soon. In addition to change your password, use a password keeper service. Most of these services are free and are available in the Google Play or iOS App Store. They utilize a two-step process so only you can access it. I think that it’s extremely important to have longer passwords being most people now do their business transitions online and most people utilize social media regularly. By having a super password, you will guard yourself from having your accounts compromised. While this may make harder for people to remember, it will be better for their security and overall safety.