There are several methods of creating strong passwords. The most important factors include making sure the password is long (+16 characters), doesn’t contain personally identifiable information such as birthdays, addresses, or other public details, is a mix of uppercase/lowercase/numbers/symbols, is not used with any other account/service, and can be remembered without writing it down.

A common method is a passphrase that uses multiple words. However, for this method to work, the words themselves cannot be easily guessed, so a nonsensical phrase that is easy to remember would probably be the quickest way to come up with a new password, though you should still look for opportunities to substitute some characters for numbers or symbols, as this will substantially slow down the process of someone attempting to guess the password by brute force. For example, if you string together the words “Florida”, “Tuesday”, and “Chair” you could use something like this: Fl0ridaTuesd@ycha1r

There is also a method of creating a password by using characters from each word of a sentence. This method is also valid, though additional care should be taken to ensure the sentence and characters chosen cannot be easily guessed, as well as ensuring that the password can be easily remembered once set.

Due to the need for so many unique passwords in the world of technology today, a password manager is often recommended as a means to keep track of all of your passwords. While Metronet does not recommend or endorse a particular password manager, it is generally recommended to utilize one in some way, as forgotten passwords can also be a significant problem for a business/organization.