A strong password is a unique word or phrase a hacker cannot easily guess or crack. Here are the main traits of a reliable, secure password:
While complexity improves password security, length is the key characteristic. The best way to make a password strong is to make it long. For example, look at these two passwords:
While 89&^598 is entirely random, the first password is less secure than the second one. A password-cracking program could guess the 89&^598 in about 44 hours while cracking ILoveMyCatLordStewart would require 7 years of constant processing.
However, even the 7-years mark is not enough to call a password safe, which is why all strong password ideas below lead to phrases that take significantly longer to crack.