Setting up a secure password

There is a lot of discussion and frustration surrounding passwords. 

What not to do: 

• Creating a password that you cannot remember and then writing it down in places you can easily find is basically as secure as leaving a key to your house under the welcome mat. 
• Creating a simple password that can be easily guessed or cracked by a program is almost as useless – and particularly dangerous if you activate any type of remote access. 

What to do: 

• make memorized passwords as lengthy as you want (15 to 64 characters), using any characters you like (including spaces) keeping in mind a focus of easy memorization such as a personally meaningful phrase or an association of words

Using simpler but longer passwords through combining words is illustrated well in the following cartoon:

Using a personal meaningful phrase with some sort of joining character other than a space. However the options are up to you. Here are some article to read on making good passwords:

https://www.grahamcluley.com/new-nist-guidelines-do-away-with-periodic-password-changes/ 
https://www.sans.org/security-awareness-training/blog/nist-has-spoken-death-complexity-long-live-passphrase

Storing passwords

Sometimes storing and using passwords is a pain! As more things are being done online, the harder it is to memorize them! Using a password manager helps this issue. However, they need to be trustworthy. Here are a few of the password managers we recommend:

Lastpass:
The technology behind Lastpass is solid and secure. Passwords are sent directly from your computer already encrypted and are decrypted only upon returning to your computer. As long as a robust master password is chosen, you can be confident that your data is safe. You can choose to purchase a subscription for additional features but its free variant is functional and useful.

Keepass:
Keepass is an offline password manager that also works exceptionally well. Just make sure to have your Keepass archive properly backed up in multiple locations.