The average person uses more than a dozen passwords and has a hard time keeping track of them.
Metro State Interim Chief Information Officer Steve Beaty says that's just too many to remember.
"Honestly, we're just not built to do that. We don't have the long-term storage to remember 100 or more different passwords," Beaty said.
Beaty says too many people keep track of them in ways that aren't always secure, like on sticky notes or in their wallets. Beaty says you also shouldn't use anything someone can easily guess, but instead, use the entire keyboard to make up your secure password.
"You have 26 lowercase, 26 uppercase, 0 thru 9 is another 10 and shift 0 thru 9 is another 10. So there's 72 commonly-used characters out there," Beaty said. "As you use more and more of those it becomes longer and longer and stronger and stronger."
Memory expert Melissa Wolak from Boulder Community Hospital says you need to use some memory techniques to remember them.
"Thinking of things that matter, but not things somebody could Google," she said.
She says once you have a good password, practice it.
There are password keeping programs that save your user name and password in a secure place and can be downloaded for free. Beaty says to be careful and choose a reputable program. He recommends those by 'Purdue' and 'Keep Pass.'
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