Password strategies to avoid Some common methods used to create passwords are easy to guess by criminals. To avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords: • Avoid sequences or repeated characters. "12345678," "222222," "abcdefg," or adjacent letters on your keyboard do not help make secure passwords. • Avoid using only look-alike substitutions of numbers or symbols. Criminals and other malicious users who know enough to try and crack your password will not be fooled by common look-alike replacements, such as to replace an 'i' with a '1' or an 'a' with '@' as in "M1cr0$0ft" or "P@ssw0rd". But these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in case, to improve the strength of your password. • Avoid your login name. Any part of your name, birthday, social security number, or similar information for your loved ones constitutes a bad password choice. T
