[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-how-to-generate-passwords":3},"\u003Cp>The security of&nbsp;your password directly affects the safety of&nbsp;your data. Today, fraudsters are trying to&nbsp;steal large quantities of&nbsp;information in&nbsp;order to&nbsp;steal your money, take out loans in&nbsp;your name or&nbsp;damage your online reputation. However, classic advice such as ’use complex symbols’ and ’change your password every three months’ is&nbsp;no&nbsp;longer effective. Modern hackers use machine learning algorithms and powerful computing systems that can quickly crack what was considered reliable protection yesterday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>In&nbsp;this article, we’ll explore security rules and answer the question of&nbsp;how to&nbsp;create a&nbsp;strong password.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>Common mistakes when creating passwords\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\n\u003Cp>Not all users know what constitutes a&nbsp;strong password. Despite warnings, they continue to&nbsp;make the same mistakes over and over again. For example, the sequence ’123456′ remains the most popular password. Other common options include ’password’, ’guest’, ’111111′, ’qwerty’ and ’12345678′, as&nbsp;well as&nbsp;other simple combinations. Such passwords can easily be&nbsp;guessed, putting your data at&nbsp;risk of&nbsp;falling into the wrong hands.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>Here are the most common mistakes:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cul>\n    \u003Cli>Length under 10–12&nbsp;characters;\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Using personal data in&nbsp;the password, such as&nbsp;last or&nbsp;first names, dates of&nbsp;birth, places of&nbsp;residence or&nbsp;children’s names;\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Obvious words such as ’password’ or ’secret’;\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Sequential, repetitive or&nbsp;very common number combinations such as ’123456′ or ’101010′;\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Sequential keyboard patterns such as ’qwerty’ or ’йцукен’;\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Contact information such as&nbsp;phone number, address or&nbsp;email address.\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Names of&nbsp;favourite movies, books, bands, or&nbsp;anything else related to&nbsp;your hobbies and interests.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\n\n\u003Cp>Remember that scammers can easily find information about you from public sources and crack such passwords with little effort. To&nbsp;prevent this, you need to&nbsp;generate complex, strong passwords for each account and store them in&nbsp;a&nbsp;password manager.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>Updates to&nbsp;the NIST password guidelines in&nbsp;2026\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\n\u003Cp>The 2025&nbsp;NIST (National Institute of&nbsp;Standards and Technology) password guidelines still emphasise that password length plays a&nbsp;key role, recommending a&nbsp;minimum of&nbsp;12–16&nbsp;characters. They also emphasise that length is&nbsp;more important than complexity. Longer passwords are harder for attackers to&nbsp;crack.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>In&nbsp;2025, NIST expanded the set of&nbsp;characters permitted in&nbsp;passwords to&nbsp;include everything from the ASCII standard and even Unicode. This allows you to&nbsp;combine characters from different languages, special characters and digits, making passwords even harder to&nbsp;guess.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>Another significant change to&nbsp;the NIST recommendations is&nbsp;the removal of&nbsp;the requirement for passwords to&nbsp;expire. In&nbsp;other words, users are no&nbsp;longer required to&nbsp;change their password every three months without good reason. Researchers have acknowledged that frequent forced changes lead to&nbsp;less secure choices, such as&nbsp;simple words and phrases. Passwords should now only be&nbsp;changed when there is&nbsp;clear evidence of&nbsp;a&nbsp;breach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>NIST has maintained its recommendation to&nbsp;abandon password hints, despite the fact that many services still use them. The guidelines also encourage the use of&nbsp;password managers, which is&nbsp;both convenient and practical. Such services prevent you from forgetting your passwords, keep all your login credentials in&nbsp;one place and protect them securely.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Ch2>How to&nbsp;Create a&nbsp;Strong Password in&nbsp;2026\u003C\u002Fh2>\n\n\u003Cp>In&nbsp;today’s world, using strong passwords is&nbsp;essential for keeping your data safe and your mind at&nbsp;ease. However, creating a&nbsp;truly random combination of&nbsp;letters, symbols, and numbers&nbsp;— and ensuring it’s reliable&nbsp;— can be&nbsp;challenging.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>To&nbsp;avoid this, you can use an&nbsp;online password generator. With one of&nbsp;these, you can create a&nbsp;password in&nbsp;just a&nbsp;couple of&nbsp;clicks.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cp>Here are the main rules for generating a&nbsp;password:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\n\u003Cul>\n    \u003Cli>It&nbsp;should be&nbsp;at&nbsp;least 12&nbsp;characters long. The service will remind you of&nbsp;this by&nbsp;showing a&nbsp;strength indicator.\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Uppercase and lowercase letters. The generator will mix them in&nbsp;a&nbsp;random order.\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Use digits and special characters. Including these makes your password stronger.\u003C\u002Fli>\n    \u003Cli>Use different passwords for different logins. For convenience, the generator can create several combinations at&nbsp;once for your various accounts.\u003C\u002Fli>\n\u003C\u002Ful>\n\n\u003Cp>If&nbsp;you don’t like the suggested password, you can refresh the results to&nbsp;see other combinations. The generated password can easily be&nbsp;copied and saved in&nbsp;a&nbsp;convenient place. To&nbsp;provide additional protection for your account, we&nbsp;also recommend enabling two-factor authentication.\u003C\u002Fp>\n"]