Secure Passwords, Simplified

By cgtemplate | September 5, 2025

Passwords, they’re inconvenient, difficult to memorize and cause problems when forgotten. Just like recipe blogs that hide the recipe behind a six paragraph tale of woe. It’s an unfortunate reality, but here are some tips to help you make password problems a thing of the past.

Without any more space filling preamble, here are two ways to create passwords that are easy to remember and incredibly difficult to guess.

First, avoid the following things in all of your passwords:

  • Username
  • Real name
  • Important dates
  • Personal Information
  • REUSE – one use per password
  • Repeated letters/numbers AAA or 112211
  • Common words/phrases such as iLOVEyou or Password
  • Personal information 
  • Anniversaries – NO
  • Birthdays – NO
  • Home Address – NO

Now for the good stuff

An easy way to create a long password that is easy to remember is to use what we call the “Revised Phrase Method”.  Simply choose a few unrelated words.  Uncommon words, local lore, historical figures, or foreign words make good choices that are easy to remember. Sprinkle in your local password requirements for symbols or numbers and you have a difficult to guess, easy to remember, password.

Here are some examples:

  • CorrectHorseBatteryStaple
  • EstebanNile&MillerAuditorium!
  • PeatmossBroncosC’estlavie

Please don’t use those, just use the method.

The second method, named for Bruce Schneier, is commonly referred to as “The Bruce Scheier Method”, or more menacingly, “The Algorithm”.  Think of a random sentence, anything will do. Then, take the first two letters of each word, and viola a new easy to remember password.

Oh look! A wild example!

  • Are albino pandas the cutest?
    • Aralpathcu?
  • I wanna be the very best, like no one ever was!
    • Iwabethvebe,linoonevwa!

They look incredibly complicated, but if you created them, you’ll remember them!

And look at that, in five minutes you learned how to be more secure online!

We recommend using Keeper to manage your passwords. Ask us how to get Keeper for your team at a discounted price today.

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