Courtesy of USAA

As identity thieves prowl the Web, they don’t rely on painstaking guesswork. They’re armed with password-hacking programs that do the work for them. If you’re still using the name of your pet or your favorite sports team as a password, you’re easy prey.

The best hacker-resistant passwords are:

• Lengthy: At least eight characters, but longer is better.
• Multi-character: Use numbers, symbols, punctuation and both uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Memorable: How do you make a long, complex password that’s easy to remember? Build it around a sentence. For example, “At the NCAA tournament, Bucknell defeated Kansas 64 to 63” becomes @tNt,BdK64t63.

The most common password is 123456. If this is your password you should really consider changing it.

USAA, a diversified financial services group of companies, is among the leading providers of financial planning, insurance, investments, and banking products to members of the U.S. military and their families. For the past three years, BusinessWeek magazine ranked USAA among the top two “Customer Service Champs,” highlighting our legendary commitment of providing highly competitive financial products for approximately 7 million members. For more information about USAA, or to learn more about membership, visit usaa.com.