A good friend recently had a scam scare, so needed to change her passwords. It can be a mammoth task.The big question: Is there an easy way to have different passwords for everything, yet at the same time still be able to remember them all?
The answer is, YES!
Here's the way it works:
1 - take a word that you will easily remember, for instance = 'coconuts'
2 - then do a standard number substitution for some of the letters (o=0, s=5) turning coconuts into, c0c0nut5.
[Other good general number substitutions are: i=1 and e=3 b=6]
3 - now add a symbol to either end - $c0c0nut5$
So far so good, but that would still be the same password for everything, but here comes the clever bit.
Include the first 2 or the first 3, letters relevant to the website you are logging in to.
For Instance - Amazon.
The password is now...
(1st two letters) $c0c0nut5am$ or
(1st three letters) $c0c0nut5ama$
(or use the last 2 letters) $c0c0nut5on$.
You could even go for the whole word:
$c0c0nut5amazon$
Or even reverse the website name:
$c0c0nut5nozama$.
Of course, depending how your brain works this might be a step too far!
You can also add a special year. $c0c0nut5am1987$
In the same way, if it was Twitter, the password would be,
$c0c0nut5tw$, or
$c0c0nut5twi$ , or
$c0c0nut5er$ or
$c0c0nut5twitter$
etc, etc.
Imagine doing it for a phrase. For instance 'I love ice cream', would be,
I=1
love=l0v3
ice=1c3
cream=cr3am,
which becomes (for Amazon) $1l0v31c3cr3amam$
Get the idea? Hope that helps.
PS - did you know that one of the most common words people use for a password is, 'password'. PLEASE DON’T!
