Choosing your User ID and Password is an important part of establishing the security for your account. The following Do's and Don'ts can help you select something that will be easy for you to remember but difficult for "outsiders" to guess.
Do's:
- Mix letters and numbers.
- Select codes that will be easy for you to remember.
Use phrases that combine spaces, words and other symbols (i.e. "Mary had a little lamb," etc.)
Don'ts
- Don't use only one word.
- Don't use something readily identifiable such as your birthday, spouse or child's name, social security number, phone number or street address. While these may be easy for you to remember, they can be traced directly to you and are easy for potential hackers to guess.
- Don't use the same code for your User ID and Password. They should be two distinct entries.
- Don't use letters or numbers that are near each other on the keyboard (i.e. hjkl;) or that appear in a logical sequence (i.e. 123456 or abcdefg).
- Don't ever share your codes with anyone.