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Use Unique Passwords

Your passwords should always be unique and hard to guess. Hackers may try to steal your passwords to gain access to your personal information.

Create unique passwords - don't use your date of birth, social security number or recognizable words. Try to use one with a combination of letters, numbers and symbols and make the password as meaningless as you can remember.

One strategy for creating and remembering passwords is to come up with a phrase that only you would remember. For example, the phrase, "I was married on June 24th in Finland," would result in the password of "iwmoj24if" by using the first letter of each word in the phrase. This password includes both letters and numbers and will be more difficult to guess. Another easy way to remember a combination of these is to take the first letter of a favorite song or phrase, for example "Old McDonald Had a Farm" could be "omhaf."

Make sure to keep your passwords to yourself and to use different passwords each time one is needed. If someone gets access to one password, you don't want that password to work for everything. Finally, NEVER share your passwords with anyone -- including someone claiming to be a customer service representative. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) should never ask for your password.