Whether you're setting up your control panel access or a new email account, you'll need to set a password.  Yes, you probably have too many passwords already and it can be difficult to come up with a new one, but here are some tips to make the process a little easier!

Here's the official requirements for passwords on our system:-

"Passwords must be at least 7 characters long and include different types of characters. Shorter passwords must contain more types of characters. Only uppercase and lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and special characters are allowed. Avoid using dictionary words, personal information, and keyboard sequences."

Recommended password criteria: 

• Minimum of 8 characters
• 1 Upper case letter
• 1 Lower case letter
• 1 number
• 1 Special character  (!?@£$%*&+=  etc.)
• Not word based

So how do you pick an easy to remember password that's impossible to guess and and meets the requirements above?

First, the Do's and the Don'ts

Do

• make it as long as possible - (8 is only the minimum)
• Use a mix of lowercase, uppercase, numerals and special characters
• Change it regularly

Don't

• use your name or other personal information such as dates etc
• use plain words (names, anything found in a dictionary or even foreign words)
• use telephone numbers
• use "password" - yes, we've seen that!

How to make up a good password.

We want our password to be memorable, so simply take something memorable and change it!  A phrase is ideal.

Here's an example, (think of summer) - I hate rain

This is easy to remember and easy to change into a secure password- I becomes 1, hate becomes H8, and rain we just miss spell as rayn, add an exclamation mark (special character) and we've got  1H8rayn!   - 8 characters, uppercase, lowercase, numerals and special characters.

Here's another example - I was born under a wandering star  - just using mnemonics and a change to include numerals & special character (a star of course) could become -  1WBuaws*