Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University suggest some tips on how to make a stronger password in creating an online account to avoid hackers getting into your account.

(Photo : Unsplash/Dan Nelson)

Online accounts or any platforms like social media, bank account, mobile application, trading platform, and more always require passwords.

Users are required to create a password like making sure to include a special character, numbers, capital letters, and more. But researchers suggest some tips on how to make stronger passwords.

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Creating stronger, more secure passwords

Researchers at Carnegie Melon University say that following the standard format of an online account in creating a password like including a capital letter, special character, a number, and more do not totally help anyone to have a stronger password.

This means that hackers can easily get into anyone's online account that might compromise personal information.

Researchers said that everyone follows familiar rules in creating a strong password which is supposed to protect you from hackers. However, researchers said that these rules do not make your password stronger, according to CNET.

Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Security and Privacy Laboratory at CMU, said that her team has a better way and a meter that websites can use to help you create a more secure password.

Cranor said that after you have created a password of at least 10 characters, the meter will then suggest to break up common words with slashes or random letters to make your password stronger.

Their meter is apart from other meters that use colors to suggest how strong the password is.

Typically, other meters use colors like green to indicate that the password is strong and red when it is weak.

However, Cranor's meter does not use a certain checklist but instead responds to common pitfalls that his team has seen when they set up passwords during experiments run by the lab over several years.

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What the researchers found in creating passwords

For several years, researchers have been studying how people create their password. They found out that one of the problems is that they tick all the security checks but are still easy to guess because most follow the same pattern.

An online account user is likely to add a "1" at the end or if capital letters will be required it is most of the time placed as the first one in the password.

There are instances as well that some password meters require a special character and researchers found out that people frequently use exclamation marks.

Punctuation marks work magic

Researchers said that their password meter will give a suggestion on how to make your password stronger. To give an example, the meter will suggest using "ILoveLife5!" which meets the standard instead of creating "Ilovelife5" which is easier to guess.

Additionally, the meter also offers other advice based on what you type in, such as reminding you not to use a name or suggesting you put special characters in the middle of your password.

Cranor concluded, "It's relevant to what you're doing, rather than some random tip."