Passwords are a problem. Every account should have a unique password that’s hard to guess. But how do you remember all those unique passwords when you have a lot of accounts? The problem gets worse if you try to make passwords that are difficult for others to guess because they're usually difficult for you to guess as well. Many people don't bother and use a single password for all their accounts that's easy to remember like 123456. A solution like this may be convenient, but it makes it very easy for hackers to access all your accounts.
Think nobody is foolish enough to use a password like 123456? The National Cyber Security Centre in the UK analyzed passwords found in public databases of breached accounts and discovered that 123456 was the password used by more than 23 million people. Yikes!
There’s a better way. Consider this password, Koma3443NF#$$#. It looks like a complicated mishmash but it's based on a template that's designed to make unique passwords easy to generate and easy to remember. The template has four components: an alphabetic sequence (Koma), a numeric sequence (3443), an identifier (NF) and a symbol sequence (#$$#). The components are designed to be easy to remember and easy to type, and the only component that changes from one password to the next is the identifier. Here’s how the system works.
Alphabetic sequence
The alphabetic sequence (Koma) personalizes your passwords. It should be at least four letters long and include both upper- and lower-case letters. Personalize it by choosing a word that’s meaningful to you and then make it harder to guess by only using part of the word. For example, if you were born in Takoma Washington you might shorten Takoma to Koma. Don’t use full names like Takoma because they’re too easy to guess. You can place upper-and lower-case letters wherever you wish (koMa) as long as you use at least one of each. The password will also be easier for you to use if you make it easy to type.
Numeric sequence
The numeric sequence (3443) should be a simple pattern of at least four numbers. Patterns made from adjacent numbers (34 or 12) or numbers separated by one digit (35 or 13) are easy to type. The pattern is more important than the numbers because remembering a simple pattern is easier than remembering a sequence of digits. Patterns like 3434 or 4343 work just as well as 3443.
Remembering the pattern also lets you change the number sequence without having to memorize a different string of numbers. Just start with a different number and repeat the same pattern. All you have to remember is the first number in the sequence. For example, 3443 becomes 8998 when you start with 8 rather than 3. If you wish, you can easily categorize passwords by using a different first number for different categories such as starting with 1 (1221) for shopping accounts and 6 (6776) for financial accounts.
Identifier
The identifier (NF) is the one component of the template that differs for every password. It should be an acronym for the password’s account. For example, NF is an acronym for Netflix. The identifier is the only unique thing you’ll have to remember or guess when asked to enter a password. Don’t try and get clever with it; choose an acronym that’s the first thing that comes to mind when you need the password to log in. If NX works better for you than NF as an acronym for Netflix, use it.
The key feature of the identifier is that it's the first thing that comes to mind when you see the name of the account. It doesn’t matter how long it is. NF may be right for Netflix while CHITRI may work best for the Chicago Tribune.
Any combination of upper- and lower-case letters is okay as long as the pattern remains the same for all your identifiers. Acronyms that use only one case are both easier to remember and easier to type. An alternative is to capitalize only the first letter of each word in the acronym such as Nf or ChiTri. Don’t use different patterns for different passwords because you'll have to remember both the acronym and the pattern which is harder to do.
Symbol sequence
Many websites now require passwords that include symbols as well as alphanumeric characters and upper- and lower-case letters. The problem is that symbols are harder to remember than letters or numbers. Fortunately, there’s an easy solution because symbols are paired with numbers on the qwerty keyboard. You can use the same sequence for symbols that you did for numbers by just holding down the shift key when entering the symbols. Thus 3443 becomes #$$#.
A simple variant of this scheme is to move the number pattern up or down one digit for the symbol pattern. For example, if your number pattern is 3443, use 4554 which is $%%$ with the shift key held down. Note that this solution doesn't work as well for some cell phone keyboards that don't map symbols to digits like the qwerty keyboard.
Putting it all together
The example password (Koma3443NF#$$#) follows a numerical, alphabetic, identifier, symbol sequence. You can order the components of the sequence any way you like, for example 3443KomaNF#$$# or #$$#NFKoma3443. Just make sure you use the same order for all of your passwords. You can also modify the template however you please as long as you always use the same template.
A template like this works best if you use it to create passwords that are easy to remember and easy to guess when you can't remember. Your passwords will be easy to remember if the only thing that differs from one password to the next is the identifier. They will be easy for you to guess if the identifier is the first acronym that comes to mind. The rest of the password looks complicated but learning it is easy. The alphabetic sequence is a word that is meaningful to you, and you only have to remember a key-press pattern and the first digit for the numeric and symbol sequences. The alphabetic, numeric and symbol segments of each password will quickly become automatic because they’re the same for all your passwords.
A password that's easy for you to guess isn't as easy for a hacker to guess because the hacker doesn't know your template, how the components are ordered or the sequences you used for each component. She could figure this out but she'd need at least two of your passwords and she'd need to know that both passwords are used by the same person.
Is this template the best type of password protection you can have? Not at all. Using two-factor authentication or the random strings generated by password protection apps is better than relying on a password you create. But when you’re creating your own passwords, the template is much better than using the same password for more than one account or using an easy to guess password like 123456.
