Tech Q&A

Q. What suggestions can you provide for creating a strong password for a financial database?

A. There are a couple ways to create difficult-to-crack passwords. One is substituting letters with special characters and numbers. You never want to use the word “password.” Change it to p7sw0rd!. Or, use the first letters of the words in a favorite line of poetry or a verse of song, and substitute numbers. “Hail, hail the lucky ones, I refer to those in love” becomes “H,hTL0,IR2t1L.” Strong passwords contain at least eight characters and use numbers, keyboard characters and upper- and lower-case letters.

Gannett News Service