ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (WHAT THE TECH?) — Recent leaks at AT&T and Roku put millions of customers’ information in danger of being compromised by hackers and cybercriminals.

The first line of defense you have to protect yourself? Creating memorable and strong passwords.

By now, we all know the criteria for strong passwords but what about making them memorable? Here’s a trick that works:

Pick two of your favorite songs or movies. In this example, I’ll use Darkness on the Edge of Town, and Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.

Take the first letter of each word. Using lowercase and uppercase letters. That’s a pretty strong password. We’ll add a special character between the song titles. And a number.

You’ll be able to remember this 16-character password. It’s just two of your favorite songs, a number, and a special character.

Since we shouldn’t use the same password for every account, here’s the trick:

Add the first letter of the account to the beginning, and the last letter to the end.

• Facebook: Add a capital F and a lowercase k.
• Google: Add a G and E.

Use this recipe for bank accounts and other accounts. After a bit, entering and remembering passwords will be second nature.

Even if your password is included in a lea the bad guys would only have the password for that one account which you can update using a different number or letter in the middle. And all you have to do is remember your favorite two songs or movies.

That’s a simple trick for creating strong and memorable passwords.

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