Creating strong passwords for all your online accounts is not a thing you should do. It is a thing you must do. There are so many Algorithms used to Crack a Password. Cracking Password Time solely depends on the characters you used. If you use Strong Password it will take years to Crack it.
Types of password:
*Passwords that contain only Letters
  Praveen
*Passwords that contain only numbers
  1821989
*Passwords that contain only Special characters
 !@#$%^
*Passwords that contain only Letters & Numbers
 P100c
*Passwords that contain only Letters & Special Characters
 P@ssword?
*Passwords that contain only Special Characters & Numbers
(@$514)
*Passwords that contain only Letters, Special Characters & Numbers
 A;wn@l6?%
You can see that the Last password with a Combination with Letters, Special Characters & Numbers seems to be more secure.
I have taken this Password Cracking Time Result from this Site:
http://www.lockdown.co.uk/?pg=combi&s=articles
What makes a strong password?
I shall not elaborate on this since many sites have already discussed this in great detail. In a nutshell, a strong password must constitute the following:
- It needs to contain special characters such as @#$%^&
- It must be at least 8 characters long.
- It must not have any common words such as 123, password, your birth date, your login name and any words that can be found in the dictionary.
- A variation of capitalization and small letters
In my opinion, even if your password consists of the above, it is still not enough. Your password needs to be totally unique and different for each and every one of your online accounts. This is to make sure that in the event that one account is hacked into, your other accounts will not be affected.
You must be wondering how you are going to remember so many passwords when you have a problem remembering your existing one.
Keepass a Small Utility that is used to Store all your Passwords. I have already discussed briefly how to save Passwords using Keepass.
1. First, think of a thing, date, phrase, event, place or anything that is unique only to you. It must be at least 8 characters long. I call this the salt term. For demonstration purposes, I will use my name Praveen Kumar as the salt term. Note that the capital letters and the space in between the name are part of the salt term. For your own account, please select a salt term that is difficult for other to guess.
2. I used the following rules to replace the regular characters with special characters. You can form your own rule.
- Replace all the ‘a’ with @
- Replace all the ’K’ with <
- Repalce any space with %
- Replace any ‘e’ with 0
- Replace any ‘u’ with 3
In this case, the simple term Praveen Kumar becomes Pr@v00n%<3m@r
3. Now go to Password Meter and test the strength of your salt term.
The above screenshot is the result my Password Strength. If your salt term is not strong enough, you will see a list of items that you can improve on.
Is that enough?
That is only the beginning. To really make it secure and hard for others to guess, you will need to change your password every few months, this is Very Important. Some of you may find it a chore to come up with new passwords every month.
Conclusion
Generating and using a strong password is only your first line of defense against hackers.
The most important thing that you should take note of is your internet browsing habits. When you are using a public terminal, make sure that it has the proper firewall and anti-virus installed, make sure your network is secure, log out when you are done with your session and clear the cache once you are done.
