Most websites now require/encourage you to create a strong password when you set up an account. But what exactly is a strong password? What one site considers a strong password another site will tell you is moderate or weak.
Regardless of what any specific site tells you, a strong password should have the following characteristics:
- at least 8 characters
- doesn’t contain your actual name, your user name, or your company name
- doesn’t contain a complete real word
- is significantly different than previous passwords
- contains an upper case, lower case, numerical, and symbol character
