Add the £ sign to your passwords

Further to your news story on using three random words being safer than “complex” passwords, I work in IT security and have been dealing with this for many years. I agree that three random words is excellent because you don’t have to write them down. However, between, before and after those random words you should add the £ sign (if you can). The reason is simple: the UK is the only country that uses this sign, and password-cracking software finds it hard to decipher. Mike Fitzgerald

One system I use for passwords are car registrations that I can remember from the past. For example ABC123 and W456XYZ, using upper and lower case letters, become Abc123w456xyz (these are obviously made-up registrations). They may look complex, but I find them easy to remember. John Davies

I use Bitwarden ( https://bitwarden. com) and some passwords get the long random treatment, but I still keep a list of words (including numbers and special characters) for others. For shorter passwords I use the first letters from words in a sentence. So, ‘My dog has no nose78$’ becomes Mdhnn78$. It’s easy to type and, I hope, hard to guess (I don’t use this particular example, of course!). Martin Mcmerkin

I take a favourite book, select a page at random, then use the first three words (or any). Make a note of the page. Only you know the book and the page number. Sam Porter

CA SAYS We always love hearing your techniques for creating memorable passwords, so please send us more. For inspiration turn to page 62.