A good password should...

• Be used and known only by those whom you allow to access your account, such as yourself and a spouse.
• Be secret, not writen on a post-it note stuck on your computer.
• Be easy for you to remember but hard for others to guess (including by a password cracking program)
• Contain both upper and lower case letters
• Contain some Numbers
• Contain some non-alphanumeric characters (e.g. !@#$%^&*(){}[]|\:;_+'"<>,.?/)

What makes a poor password? Do not...

• Do Not write your password on a post-it note and stick it on your computer. In fact, don't even write it down.
• Do Not use your name in any form, including your user name.
• Do Not use a family members name either.
• Do Not use passwords that are made up of a word or a name (even if it is in another language
• Do Not think that simply adding a number to the beginning or the end of a word makes it secure, it does not.
• Do Not use a password made up using all numbers, or all the same letter.
• Do Not use simple sequences or patterns such as "abc123"
• Do Not simply exchange letters or numbers for similar ones (e.g., zeros for o's).
• Do Not use an "empty" password, allowing someone to simply hit the enter key.
• Do Not use any information that is easily obtained about you.(license plate, phone numbers, etc.)
• Do Not use a password shorter than six characters.

How to create a good password you can still remember:

1. A popular technique is to start with a phrase you can easily remember. You might choose an obscure quote from a movie, a book, or a piece of poetry you really like. To illustrate I am going to use the phrase: "It is so easy to remember my password now!"
2. Take the first letter of each word. "iisetrmpn"
3. Add punctuation if you wish "iisetrmpn!"
4. Now replace some of the letters with symbols or numbers that are similar to the letter. "i1$32rmpn!"
5. Capitalize some of the letters "i1$32RmPn!"
6. What you end up with is a password that looks like this "1i$32RmPn!". It's not a word in any dictionary and it's hard for others to guess but easy for you to remember. All you have to remember is your phrase to remember your password, in this example "It is so easy to remember my password now!"