How to create secure email passwords

The best practice for creating a secure password is for your password to meet all of the criteria listed below:

• 8 or more characters in length, but the longer the password is, the better.
• Include ALL, not just some, of the following four character types:
  1. Lowercase letters
  2. Uppercase letters
  3. Numbers
  4. Symbols
• Obvious substitutions, such as '@' for 'A' or '3' for 'E', are not considered strong and should be avoided.
• Avoid personal details like important dates, phone numbers, addresses, and family names.

Email sending limits can be imposed on email accounts with older, weak passwords, which is important for businesses that need to send a lot of emails. These limits help prevent compromised accounts from doing too much damage to your reputation and can easily be changed by updating the password to a secure rating.

It may sound impossible to remember secure passwords, but it also means an impossible password to crack into. Writing a password down on paper and keeping it somewhere safe is far more secure than having a password that is easy to guess or a text document with all of your passwords online. To keep things easy for you but hard for others, try some of these tricks:

• Have a written copy that’s always missing the same spot for all passwords. For example, if the third letter is always 'P', omit the third letter 'P' from the written copy, and anyone coming across the paper copy will not be able to use that password.
• Take a favourite word or saying but misspell it. For example, Culgry3Sity#Albeta is very long and confusing, but easy for a Calgary Alberta resident and unlikely to ever get cracked.
• If you want to use the same password everywhere (not recommended), at the very least, make differentiations. The differentiations in passwords could be close, but not obvious to the type of service. In the below examples we added the last letter of the service. Again if the added letter is omitted from written records it would be near impossible for a thief to guess. For example:
  • Facebook: Culgry3Sity#AlbetaK
  • Shaw: Culgry3Sity#AlbetaW
  • TD: Culgry3Sity#AlbetaD
  • Amazon: Culgry3Sity#AlbetaN

@shaw.ca email passwords can only be changed from within My Shaw.

1. Log in to My Shaw.
2. Go menu and select 'Internet'.
3. Scroll down to '@Shaw Email Accounts' and select 'Change password' for the desired email address.
4. Save changes.