Password Safety & Best Practices

There are a few important rules to follow when choosing a new password.

Choose something memorable so that you don't have to write it down. The longer it is the harder it will be to guess by a computer.
Try to never reuse a password. If you must, make sure that your email and banking passwords are different from each other, and all your other passwords. This way if someone gains access to one password they will not get access to your important accounts.
Change your password every 6 months to a year.
Never share your password with anyone, especially over e-mail or instant/text messaging.
Don’t use easily guessed passwords, such as "password", "12345", "qwerty", or "asdfzxcv"
Do not choose passwords based upon details that may not be as confidential as you’d expect, such as your birth date, social security number, phone number, or names of family members and pets. Often times this information is fairly trivial to obtain.

Ways to protect your password:

Always use the latest version of your favorite browser. Example: IE 11, Firefox 38, or Chrome 43 (at the time of this writing)
Make sure you install windows updates
Use an anti-virus/anti-malware program
Change your password if you suspect that someone else has been using it

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