Wondering if your password can easily be hacked , is it the right length , does it meet the minimum recommended qualifications for a good, strong password ?

If this , and many other questions do stress you then you dont need to worry anymore because in this post, i will endavour to define to you what a strong password is, features of a strong passwords and tips and tricks to avoiding your account being hacked by friends or hackers in general.

First what is Password Strength ? Why do websites recommend a minimum amount of characters for your passwords.

Password Strength can be defined as

There you have . From the definition, it is seen that if you have a weak password, a hacker can easily hack your accounts/computers as opposed to having a strong password which will prove a hard task for hackers to successfully hack your accounts.

Next, we look at the Qualities/Properties of Strong Passwords

For a given password to be labelled as strong, it should have the following minimum properties:

• Length:

Your password should be atleast 8 characters (numbers, letters or both) long

• Password Complexity:

A good password should include both upper case and lower case characters, numbers , special symbols such as #,$,% etc.

• Variety & Variation :

It is never recommended to use the same passowrd for all your website accounts, because this will keep you vulnerable. you also regurlarly change your password e.g every 3-6 months

• Avoid Association :

A good password should not contain a name, location, event , id no etc that can be easily associated with you through Social Engineering.

• Be Different :

Your password should not be common , this can easily be identifiable. passwords such as 123456789, qwerty etc are used by millions of people. do not fall into such pitfalls.

How to Easily Check Your Password Strength Online

With the above passowrd creation tips, you should be able to create a strong password which cannot be easily hacked.

After you create your passwords , there exists sites which can help you gauge how strong your password by giving you a score to gauge how strong your password is compared to minimum recommended standards and offer you recommendations on how you can further improve your password.

A password strength checker that will gauge your password and give you a score of either Exeptional, suffucient, warning or failure.

another password checker with recommendations on improving your password strength.

Computer Security and privacy is an integral part of our lives , and the first step of having safeguarding this is to make sure we have strong passwords, that will deter any hackers or intruders from illiegally access your accounts .