With the recent news that several popular websites have been hacked, we thought it was a good time to remind you what you can do to keep your personal information safe online.

It all starts with creating safe and secure online passwords. Our Consumer Action Handbook offers several tips to help you create strong passwords.

• As tempting as it can be, don’t use the same password across multiple websites. If one website gets hacked, the hackers would then be able to access your information on other sites.
• Change your passwords from time to time.
• Use a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
• The longer password, the better it is.
• Don’t use your name, birthday, license plate, favorite sports teams or other facts that are easily guessed.
• Create a password based on a phrase. For example “A stitch in time saves nine” can be translated into the password “Ast!Ts9”. where each character represents a word in the phrase.
• If you must use the same password on several websites, add a prefix or suffix. For example, use “Ast!Ts9:4bnk”for your bank account and “Eml: Ast!Ts9” for your email account.

Find more information about keeping your personal information safe online.