Passwords

The advice on passwords has changed, and most of what people remember is now out of date.

Length is what helps. Three or four random words is stronger and far easier to live with than a short password stuffed with symbols. Forced complexity rules and being made to change your password every ninety days made things worse, not better, because people responded predictably: Password1! became Password2!. What does help is checking a password has not already appeared in a known breach, because those lists are the first thing an attacker tries. Pick something long, do not reuse it anywhere, and change it when there is a reason rather than on a calendar.