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DO

• Use a mixture of upper and lower case letters
• Combine letters, numbers and symbols
• Replace letters with special characters or numbers (i.e. ‘@’ could replace ‘a’, ‘1’ or ‘!’ could replace ‘I’ etc)
• Use words or phrases that are easy for you to remember but difficult for others to guess
• Make sure the password is at least 8 characters long, and ideally, around 14.
• Try and make a password that uses the entire keyboard and not just the most common letters.

DON’T

• Use dictionary words
• Use all lower-case or all upper-case
• Use a password that people could easily guess (such as your own name, a pet’s name etc)
• Use a sequence of letters from the keyboard (i.e. qwerty or 12345)

So for example, if you were a big fan of Gloucester Rugby Club, ‘Rugby’ or 'GRC' would be terrible passwords,
but K1ng$holm3R0@d (as in Kingsholme Road) would be exceptionally secure.

And if that does happen to be your password, please accept our apologies!

Study Reveals 75 Percent of Individuals Use Same Password for Social Networking and Email

To recap ensure that you maintain your personal security by:- .

 • Make Your Password Unique When You Can – As a critical line of defense, choose passwords wisely. Incorporate numbers, letters and special characters (such as punctuation marks) to strengthen your password. Form a password using letters, numbers and figures in a memorable sentence.

 • Use one password for one site -- Once you've created a unique password, use it only for one Web site or one service. This is especially important for your email account and online banking accounts. If you use the same password everywhere, you open up a gateway to the information stored on each of your password-protected sites if one of them is compromised. In addition, don't write down passwords and store them for your own recall on a notepad or in a Word document, unless its stored in a very safe and secure location such as locked safe.

 • Not Sharing is Caring – Never share any password with anyone: Not your boss, your best friend, your cousin or your significant other, unless required. Once a password is out of your control, you don't know how it will be used. If you've shared a password, to regain control of your account change the password.

 • Change your passwords periodically -- Change the passwords you use most frequently, and never keep the same password on any account for more than a year even if you rarely use the site. For help, a good password manager feature will remind you when it's time to switch it up.

 • Say no when browsers offer to save your password – Web site browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer have a feature which lets users save passwords for later use. The most widely distributed password stealing Trojans, including Zbot and SpyEye, know where to look and how to steal that information if you get infected. This also applies if you use an FTP client.