Passwords: Make mine strong

Many of you are probably getting a lot of emails from friends and family that contain only a link, no real message. Those emails link to a Canadian pharmacy or a dreaded virus. So why are your friends sending you these? They aren't. They just happen to have a password that is a word or phrase. Spammers are using programs that guess passwords, (computers can make a million guesses pretty fast!)

Protect yourself by picking a password that contains a random group of at least 8 letters and numbers. If you this same password most of the time, you'll have it memorized pretty quickly. You can even use the first or last 4 numbers for your debit card pin code.

Samples of strong passwords:

Er93tak3485

Btfo20vo81

My husband, Steve can be a con artists dream. He received an email from "hotmail" that said they needed his password. He quickly obliged and the spammers quickly took over his account and emailed all his contacts. The email claimed he was stuck in another country with no passport or money so send some quickly. Not one person called or sent us a text. Well that could be because the email was signed, Larry. No company will ever ask you to send them your password.