As you know, many sites on the Internet and some programs on your computer require the use of a password. Often, what we do is simply choose a password that is easy for us to remember. Unfortunately, those types of passwords are usually pretty simple for hackers' software to figure out. Yes, that’s right. Hackers have software that tries password after password - entire dictionaries in fact - until it figures out your password. NOT good!

In this day and age, it is extremely important that passwords are complicated enough to keep hackers away from our personal information.  We use the Homeland Security's method of creating passwords and you should be using that also.

I want to direct you to an online security page presented by Homeland Security.   Please take the time to read it.  If you adopt their password method, you’ll decrease the likelihood of being hacked and/or not being able to get into an account or program up to a trillion to one. Oh, and I know this reading may be a little dry - perhaps even “boring.” But, it is important especially in this day and age of advanced password hacking techniques.

Here is the site - if you can’t simply click and go to the site, please cut and paste the address into your browser:
https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST04-002.

You'll find another guide and a password-checker here: https://howsecureismypassword.net/.