12 FANTASTIC TIPS TO PROTECT YOUR PASSWORDS - Part 2

If you want a hack-proof password you should look beyond your mother’s maiden name. Wayne Williams offers six more expert tips to boost your password security.

7 Avoid scams
You wouldn’t give your PIN code to a stranger in the street would you? Even if he was wearing a nice suit and claiming to be your bank manager. So if you get an email that claims to be from your bank asking you to confirm your password details, ignore it. It doesn’t matter how convincing it looks, a bank or financial institution will never ask for such details. Don’t be fooled.

8 Get help thinking up passwords
There are plenty of free programs that can generate hard-to-guess password at the click of a button. Try Passwords Guru (http://www.cezeo.com/products/passwordsguru) which produces secret words comprising letters, numbers and/or symbols.

9 Change your password
Security experts recommend changing your passwords regularly. Although it’s not worth changing them too often, it doesn’t hurt to enter new ones every six months or so to make sure that they remain private.

10 Set unguessable security questions
When you set up a new account, some sites will ask you to enter a security question and answer that can be used to identify you in the event of a problem with your password. Paris Hilton chose ‘What’s your pet’s name?’ as her security question. Unfortunately, her chihuahua’s name (Tinkerbell) was easily found on the internet and she was quickly hacked. You won’t be as high-profile a target, but the lesson remains the same.

11 Choose a lengthy password
Websites will often set a minimum number of characters for your password, and sometimes insist you use numbers as well as letters too. This can be a pain, but it’s for your own good. Make sure your password is at least nine characters long.

12 Use the entire keyboard
When creating a password try to use different characters, not just letters or numbers. Your password can be considerably strengthened by including capital letters (if the password is case sensitive), punctuation marks and a few random symbols. Just make sure you can remember it. Oh, and don’t think about setting your password as Qwerty – that’s a very common choice.