Issues with forgotten passwords come up all the time.

First: know that generally speaking, if you forgot your password, you’re screwed.

Second: do not choose a word for a password. For example: Ford, Billy, password, Iloveyou and secret are all passwords that can be cracked (guessed) in about 1/1000 of a second.

Billy1234 is also terrible.

No password at all is the first thing tried by the bad guys.

password is number 2.

pwd is number 3.

Bad guys use dictionaries of words and passwords to simply look up your password.

Here is a very strong password: *t,hRj9GYwpg9ny

Wonderful. How are you supposed to remember that?

OK

Here is an equally strong password: Our1Family2Black3Cat4Is5Named6Doofus

AHA!!!

Yes, it can be as simple as using a phrase you’ll never forget, and a simple rule or two you’ll always remember.

In this case, the phrase is “our family black cat is named doofus”

The rules: 1) each word is capitalized; 2) spaces are replaced with numbers, starting at number 1.

That’s just a sample.

Start with a phrase. Capitalize part of it. First letter? Last letter? 2nd letter? you decide. replace the spaces with numbers and/or symbols (ie instead of 1,2,3,4 use !@#$ (which is shift 1,2,3,4)

What if the place won’t let you use a password that is 36 characters long? (length is good, by the way).

Then make a new rule: O1f@B3c$I5n^D is rated just as high as the others listed above, but is only 13 characters long. (This one is based on the phrase and suggestions above and the rules are rememberable. I’ll leave it to you to do the detective work and figure out the rules applied…)