If you’re guilty of using weak passwords, don’t despair. The following will show you how to create ironclad passwords so that your precious data stays safe and secure. But first, find out what not to do when creating passwords.

Read More: How Frequently Should You Change Your Passwords?

The Top 5 Weakest Passwords That You Need to Stop Using

1. Numerical Sequences. In 2016, the top most common passwords were “123456” and “123456789.” Indeed, 17% of online users are using “123456” to lock their accounts. Needless to say, these numerical sequences are likely the first passwords that someone would try when breaking into your accounts.
2. Default Passwords. Many users simply put down “password” as their password, which reached the 8th spot on 2016’s lineup, or other default terms like “guest,” “admin,” or “default.”
3. Keyboard Rows. The password “qwerty” hit third spot on 2016’s list. It’s truly the alphabetic version of “123456.” So, don’t think that someone else wouldn’t guess it in a heartbeat.
4. Dictionary Words. An unaltered word from the dictionary won’t keep your account safe, no matter how long and complicated its spelling may be.
5. Personal Data. Never use your birthday, anniversary, or any other important dates as your password. Just by doing a quick round of research on you, someone could successfully guess it. The same thing goes for entering loved ones’ names (that includes pets), your address, your phone number, or anything else that’s easily found on social media.

How to Create a Strong Password

When you’re coming up with a strong password, there are a few rules you should follow. If you’ve chosen a memorable word like “seahorse,” you should alter that word by making it a difficult combination of capital letters, symbols, and non-sequence numbers. For instance: “$eAh0rsE” or “sEAh0&$e.” These passwords appear nonsensical, but since they’re based upon a real word, you won’t have trouble remembering them. Strong passwords are also long passwords, or even passphrases, so you’ll want to include more than just a variation of “seahorse.”

As a final note: never, ever reuse a password. All of your accounts should be protected with different passwords, just in case someone manages to break into one of them. You don’t want to hand them the keys to the entire castle!

The Issue with Autofill
Many web browsers automatically save your personal information and passwords so that you don’t have to remember it, or frequently type it in. If your laptop or phone is stolen, or if an untrustworthy family member or friend borrows your device, they now have access to your information. They can easily view and use a summarized list of all of your saved login, location, and payment information in your browser’s settings.

Read More: Google’s Password Alert Tool Helps Prevent Phishing Attacks

Consider Using a Passphrase
If you’re having trouble remembering your passwords, the first step might be to create passwords that involve a passphrase instead of a complicated, random sequence of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. A passphrase is an uncommon phrase or sentence that involves a long sequence of random words (in addition to numbers, symbols, etc), or a sentence that is reasonably unique. A passphrase will be easier to remember, which means that you won’t be tempted to write it down or record it in a note on your device.

Download a Password Manager
If you have more than a dozen accounts, and are having trouble coming up with and remembering long, unique passwords for each one, then a password manager might be the solution to your problem. A password manager is a software application that safely stores all of your passwords. All you need to remember is a master password — you can log into all of your websites with this master password. One of the best password managers currently available is LastPass. It’s easy to use, free, and available for all of your devices.

Protect Your Device
You should do everything you can to protect the information on your devices. While this might include using a password manager or creating more memorable passwords, it should also include downloading antivirus software. Download PSafe Total for your Android and PSafe Total Windows for your PC to protect your devices against malware 24/7.

In an attempt to prevent access to our personal information, we’ve had to create stronger, complicated passwords for each account that are ideally “hack-proof.” Not only is this a difficult process, but it’s also been recommended that we change our passwords frequently — sometimes every 60 days. However, changing our passwords this frequently isn’t beneficial for us, nor does it make our accounts and information more secure.

Read More: Google’s Password Alert Tool Helps Prevent Phishing Attacks

Bad Password Habits
If you’re told to change your password for an account multiple times per year, you’re more likely to create “bad” passwords. Instead of putting in enough effort to create a strong password, you might minimally change a current password by altering a number, adding a different symbol, or else changing a lowercase letter to an uppercase letter. Add in the fact that you probably have at least a dozen different accounts that require passwords. If you change your passwords for all of these accounts too frequently, you’re not only making everything harder for yourself in terms of memorization, but you’re making those accounts less secure.

How Often You Should Change Your Password
Changing your password once (or twice) per year should be sufficient. If you change your password more frequently than that, such as every few months, you’re putting yourself and your account at risk. Even if you were to make strong new passwords every few months, you wouldn’t necessarily prevent any security risks. It would be more troublesome for you than for a potential hacker. However, if you feel like your password has been compromised, is too weak, or if you’ve shared it with someone else, then by all means change it immediately. But make sure you take the time to think of a strong, complex password that will secure your account until it’s time to change it again.

Download PSafe Total
If you really want to make your personal information more secure, download PSafe Total for your Android device and PSafe Total Windows for your PC to ensure that your data is protected against malicious threats 24/7. With PSafe Total’s Vault feature, you can even create a second password for important apps.