Some simple rules of thumb on behalf of the Federal Goverment

Some simple guidelines that will help you choose better passwords are:

• A password should be a minimum of eight characters long.
• Try to include some form of punctuation or digit.
• Use mixed case passwords if possible.
• Choose a phrase or a combination of words, that make the password easier to remember.
• Do not use a word that can be found in any dictionary (including foreign language dictionaries).
• Do not use a keyboard pattern such as qwertyui or oeuidhtn (look at a Dvorak keyboard).
• Do not repeat any character more than once in a row like zzzzzzzz.
• Do not use all punctuation, all digit or all alphabetic.
• Do not use things that can be easily determined such as:
  • Phone numbers.
  • Car registration.
  • Friends' or relatives' names.
  • Your name or employment details.
  • Any Date.
• Never use your account name as its password.
• Use different passwords for each machine.
• Change the password regularly and do not reuse passwords.
• Do not append or prepend a digit or punctuation mark to a word.
• Do not reverse words.
• Do not replace letters with similar looking numbers. For instance, all of the letters i should not be blindly replaced replaced by the digit 1.