How To: Secure But Memorable Passwords

The Problem

In the current age of digital growth, everything is moving online which means you have to select a password to protect your information. It isn't just one password, however. It is a password for every new account for every bill and every company or online account just to access your information.

Passwords are a source of aggravation for many, as they can be difficult to remember. Because of this, many people use a combination of birth dates, significiant names (such as children, spouses, or pets), and other information that is either easily hackable or publicly available on social media (E.G. Spot2018... yep, they must have gotten a dog named Spot in 2018). On top of that, the same password is often used across multiple accounts.

This means that once a single password is hacked, the intruder often has access to every online account that individual has created. While this is scary, there is a fairly easy way to greatly increase your password security while still remaining easy to remember.


The Solution

Phrase-based Passwords

Choose a phrase. It's as simply complicated as that! In order to have a password that is both secure and memorable, you can use a phrase or sentence and select the first letters from each word in the sentence as a password.

For example, if I wanted to create a master password for my password manager, I would want to create a unique but secure password such as "IWBOJ17,1971". Mean anything to you? Exactly! A hacker would not be able to easily guess that password. If you happened to be the person who wrote it however, the phrase "I Was Born On July 17, 1971" would be much more memorable (assuming that is your birth date anway. Its not mine!).

Now that I've given that example, however, I do want to warn against common phrases. The phrase in the example above could be a common phrase that would be in a hacker's guess-list formulas (E.G. guess "I was born on" then their birth date that I found on Facebook). Even a slight variation such as "My Father Was Born On July 1, 1961" could be an increased level of security.

Pick a phrase that is memorable to you (it doesn't have to be related to a birth date at all!) and convert it to a password. Have some fun with it, but make it memorable! Then just say it (in your head!) as you type it out and boom, you have a secure password!

Randomly Generated Passwords (w/ help from a Password Manager)

Another method of creating more secure passwords is with the help of a Password Manager that can generate random-and-secure passwords (such as "sHtWokZKEBdET3cC"). Password Managers are fantastic in that they are pieces of software (most often web-based applications for centralized access) which store all of your passwords for you. This is a very realistic way to create unique and secure passwords for every new account without forgetting any of them.

For those that go this route, only a single (master) password must be remembered in order to access your online manager which then in turn grants access to each individual account. This makes it even more important, however, for your master password to be a very secure password!


With the rate technology is racing forward into centralized and online accounts, we are most likely going to be moving toward a combination of the two methods summarized above. So go forward and use these tips to secure your digital identity!



  1. Use a phrase (such as "My Father Was Born On July 1, 1961") then pick out the first letter from each word (which compiles into "MFWBOJ1,1961"). It's simple, easy to remember, and secure.
  2. Use a password manager which can randomly generate secure passwords for you.