Take A Pass on Easy Access to Cards and Other Accounts With Strong Passwords

Take the time to follow these five tips for making your passwords less easy to breach. It will help keep your financial accounts, cards and email accounts out of the hands of hackers.

1. Create “strong” passwords for debit cards, credit cards, online retailers and personal email accounts. The passwords should have numbers, upper- and lower-case letters, and symbols. For example, “3Dogz$$!” is better than “1006.”
2. Use different passwords for work and personal email accounts, bank accounts and online retailers. If a hacker cracks one password, he won’t have access to others.
3. Never create a PIN (or password) using any number sequence in your social insurance number, your maiden name, date of birth, middle name, child’s name, pet’s name or anything else easily discovered or guessed.
4. Change your passwords regularly.
5. Memorize all passwords or store them in a secure location. Don’t record them on anything you carry with you—including your cell phone.