Cyber-security is critical, now more than ever. As you protect your online identity and privacy, make sure that you have strong, secure passwords! Weak, easy to crack passwords can make things like your personal information, access to your online banking, and other sensitive information accessible to the wrong people.
Here's what you can do!
If you do think you've come up with the perfect password, don't use it everywhere! All it takes is one person cracking your password, or it being written on a slip of paper that gets discovered, for everything to fall apart. Diversify your options!
Using password management software like Last Pass or Roboform can save you a lot of headaches remembering all those passwords, and provide both security and stability.
Most websites require you to use a mixture of capital and lowercase letters, numbers, and/or special symbols. That being said, that doesn't mean your passwords need to be a string of unintelligible nonsense -- a catchy but unique phrase that's memorable to you, with strategically placed upper case letters, numbers, and symbols will be almost impossible to crack but easier for you to remember.
If your password is just a series of words in the dictionary, it is subject to being cracked through what is known as a "Dictionary attack". Mix it up with more uncommon letter/symbol combinations, and avoid simple replacements (like "1"s in the place of the letter I).
Though the popular imagination of how people get hacked involves a cybercriminal running program after program to decipher your password, the truth is that a great deal of "hacking" occurs from someone seeing a password on a sticky note or finding a notebook full of passwords in your desk drawer. Don't do this!