How to Create a Strong Password You Will Actually Remember

The old advice — swap letters for symbols, add a number, change it monthly — made passwords hard for humans and easy for computers. Length is what actually protects you.

A passphrase of four unrelated words is stronger than eight scrambled characters and far easier to recall. Think copper-otter-lamp-tuesday.

The bigger win is a password manager. It creates a long, unique password for every account, so one leaked site cannot unlock the rest. You remember one strong master password; it remembers everything else.

Then turn on two-factor authentication where it is offered. Even a stolen password is useless without that second step.