Criminals are very good at cracking simple passwords. Take the recent case at Twitter.

A number of high-profile accounts were hacked. These accounts belonged to various public figures, including Barack Obama. Some embarrassing posts were made in their names. But none of these people were at fault.

A Twitter employee’s account was hacked. This gave the criminal full access to administrative tools. It wasn’t hard to do. The employee’s account had a simple password, “happiness.”

This password is a great example of what not to do. It’s fairly short. It only uses lowercase letters. And, worst of all, it’s a dictionary word. Passwords out of the dictionary can be cracked in minutes. They are the first passwords criminals try.

Create a better password

 So, what makes a password strong? There are a couple key features you should remember.

• Avoid names and dictionary words
• Use at least eight characters; the more the better
• Include upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols

A strong password should look like random characters. In fact, a truly random password is the strongest available. Unfortunately, you probably won’t remember a randomly generated string of characters.