Tips for Creating Strong and Memorable Passwords

With specific requirements for length and contents, trying to create a password that is both strong and memorable can be quite the challenge. It's easy to randomly pick random numbers and characters, but memorizing a random password can be nearly impossible. Using words or dates that are meaningful to you is easy to memorize, but lead to a less secure password. This can lead to a frustrating and head-spinning time when trying to create a new password.

Luckily, the Point Park University IT Help Desk is here to help! Here, you'll find our password complexity requirements, a list of what not to include in your password, and some helpful tips that should make it easy to create a strong, unique password that is easy to remember.

What to include

Creating a strong password begins with password length and contents. Strong passwords are long and contain a variety of letters, numbers, and special characters. At Point Park University, we have specific password complexity requirements that all passwords must meet. Take a moment below to familiarize yourself with our minimum password complexity requirements:

Password length of at least 14 characters
Must contain at least one uppercase letter (A through Z)
Must contain at least one lowercase letter (a through z)
Must contain at least one number (0 through 9)
Must contain at least one special character (&. !, @, #, etc.)

What not to include

The above requirements ensure that your password is more difficult to guess, but it's not the only thing to keep in mind when creating a strong password. Additionally, your password should not include any words or numbers that are meaningful to you. For example, you should not include a family member's name, school name, or your birthday. Some of the common words people mistakenly include in less-secure passwords are the following:

Your first or last name
Your University username
The words "Point Park"
The word "password"

Tips to remember

While the above sections are helpful for knowing what to include, or what not to include, in your password, it can still be brain-racking with trying to create a password that is both secure and memorable. We understand it can be frustrating, so we came up with some helpful tips to make the password creation process easier for everyone.

Uniqueness, like yourself

Everybody is unique and your passwords should be no different. At the Help Desk, we recommend having a password that is only used for your University account. While we suggest having a different password for your University account, it's best to ensure all your passwords are different from one another.

Think "passphrase"

Unless your password is "Constantinople," finding a fourteen-letter word can be difficult. Using one word for your password is not recommended. Instead, we suggest you use several random words, a phrase, or even a quote as a starting point for your password. Whether it's opening a dictionary and picking a few random words, creating a phrase from scratch, or using a good quote from that series you've been binge-watching lately, there are many options for coming up with a few words or phrase that is easy to remember and creates a long password.

Substitutions are your friend

If you are trying to find a way to work numbers and special characters into your password, using them to substitute letters is one way that can make your password more difficult to guess. Let's take the word "sock" for example. The letter "O" could be turned into "0" and the letter "S" can be turned into "$." Capitalize the last letter, and now you've turned "sock" into "$0cK," which is still easy to remember and yet stronger than the word without substitutions.

Separate, but together

If you've found yourself with a few words and you want to separate them, using numbers and special characters is a great way to do so while keeping your password secure. You can even separate longer words, like "baseball" into two words by using a special character: "base^ball."

Keep it away from prying eyes

You should never write down your password anywhere. Writing down your password on a piece of paper, a sticky note, or even the note app on your phone is against our security policy. If you find yourself needing to write down your password to remember it, we suggest going through the above tips again and creating a new password that is easier to remember while still meeting our minimum complexity requirements.

With these tips in mind, anybody can create a strong and memorable password. So, leave the frustration behind and start creating a password that works for both of us. And while we use examples to demonstrate some tips, we suggest not picking any of our examples to use in your own password. But don't worry, you've got this; we believe in you!

If you ever need to reset your password, head over to passwordreset.microsoftonline.com to get the process started. If you still need assistance, feel free to submit a ticket by heading here, emailing us a helpdesk@pointpark.edu, or by calling us at 412-392-3494.