Any discussion of ID protection must include being able to create solid and secure passwords. Stealing an identity can be easy even though the crime itself is quite complex. To begin with, the thief needs to acquire some small grain of information that can lead to more and more tiny pieces that can be built up to create enough for effectively impersonating you. Once there is sufficient information the identity thief can begin accessing your credit accounts, cause serious financial damage to you and cause emotional distress as you try to sort out the havoc created.

To prevent identity theft, you must pay attention to many seemingly small details, like what is carried in your wallet or how your passwords are created. They can all make a difference when trying to prevent identity theft. Passwords can make a difference between stolen identities and a thief’s frustration that makes them move on to a more vulnerable easier-to-access victims.

When you are online, your passwords really are key to your identity protection. If someone can get your password, your personal information, worth a fortune, is lying right behind it. Should you be protecting that information using your birth date, your children’s birth dates, or your anniversary, unfortunately you’re not half as protected as you might hope you are.

Use these three ways to make sure your password is strong and secure when protecting your identity:

• Create a combination of letters and numbers, the advice is good and will help with the creation of a strong password. Create your letters and numbers combination with at least 8 characters for the greatest protection. Avoid dates of birth, social security numbers or anniversaries and avoid whole words too, or make them compound words you can add an artificial addition sign to. One of the simple and memorable ways for creating strong passwords is by imagining a phrase or word that is able to be represented numerically and phonetically. Look at the following; ‘sunshine’ can become  ‘$0n541n3’ or ‘sun and shine’ = ‘$0n&541n3’ (notice the repeated ‘s’ is in two different styles, $ and 5) or ‘homebirds’ can become ‘40m3b!rD$’ or ‘home and birds’ = ‘40m3+6!rD$’ (notice this time that the ‘i’ has used the exclamation mark, whereas in ‘sunshine’ the number 1 was used for the ‘i’). Think of the personalized plates that you see on cool cars as you drive along the road. Conjure up something easy to remember that suits you.

• Obvious sequences or repeated characters should be avoided. In these cases of repeated frequency, longer isn’t better especially if they are sequential. For example, “012345678” isn’t difficult for any hacker to break and neither is “ZZZZZZZZ”.  Use all the keyboard to create your password, include symbols such as $, %, and &, and try hard not to re-use the same letters, symbols or numbers, more than once per password.

• Have different passwords for different sites. Even strong passwords are useless if they’re cracked. By using the same password at every web site you access, you exponentially increase your risk of ID theft. It is a lot of fiddling about, but think of it as part of your mental workout, assort of memory gym or recall fitness regime. A stronger password makes it much more difficult for an identity thief to gain access to massive amounts of personal data.

Your passwords are truly the keys to your kingdom as far as iron clad ID protection. Keep them safe and check to be sure they are actually strong enough.