You must change your password!

We all struggle with passwords. I'm sure everyone has a bunch of them and memorizing all of these is ... well very difficult once the number of passwords get more than 5

So what do people do? They just use the same password for everything. From their bank accounts to their email and blogs. And this proves to be a grave mistake as in the case of Izzi

Password Guidelines:

1. The passwords need to be strong, containing Letters, numbers and special letters (like ,.-!@#$%^&*())... etc If possible (many services do not allow such complex passwords, so at least letters and numbers), capital an small letters
2. The passwords, must be something easy for you to remember and difficult for others to guess, stay away from your name, family member names, your pet names, date of birth ..etc
3. The passwords shouldn't be too short, anything less than 15 letters can be brute forced (try all combinations) in less than 30 minutes. (I don't want to alarming here, but consider longer passwords always) For most of the online services, mail, blog ... etc nothing less than 6 letters
4. Do not share your password with anyone. If you were forced to share it for some event or another. Make sure you change it right after it's done.
5. Keep a separate different password for each account you have.

I do realize that maintaining a separate password for each account might be difficult thing to do, therefore, I think It's time for some password policies

1. If you don't want to memorise passwords for everything, organize them in tiers. a) Most secure, b) secure, and c) I don't care
1. In the most secure category. You try to maintain a list of very secure passwords, that you would NEVER give to anyone (example, work password, bank account password, and your primary email account password)
2. The Secure passwords, are for your blog, regular email accounts, lock and unlock your PC ... etc. Things that need to be secure, but not necessarily ultra secure
3. And finally, the "I don't care" list. And this one includes (and read carefully) Forum accounts, online services accounts and secondary email accounts
2. Be EXTRA careful from anything online that's not a reputable software company. ESPECIALLY forums. Forum admins and Database administrators have access to user passwords, and to ALL their private Email!
3. Don't share or give your password to anyone who asks for it by mail
4. Don't EVER send passwords it by email
5. If you get emails in your email account asking you to confirm your password. DO NOT RESPOND. Instead, go to the website directly and do your work on it directly. (In other words, be careful of Phishing)
6. If you know, or even remotely suspect that your account might have been hacked, CHANGE  YOUR PASSWORD IMMIDIATELY! In fact, when in doubt, change your password

Finally, there's no policy better than using common sense! You have a brain, use it!