It’s World Password Day – How Strong Is Your Password?

There are 365 days in the year, which means there is literally a day devoted to everything.

May 6th is World Password Day, so if your password is just 'password' or 'abc123', today's the day to change it.

According to cybernews.com, The top 10 most commonly used passwords are laughably bad and easy to crack, such as:

1) 123456

2) 123456789

3) qwerty

4) password

5) 12345

6) qwerty123

7) 1q2w3e

8) 12345678

9) 111111  (I'm guilty of using this one a lot lol)

10) 1234567890

The most common years used in passwords are the year you were born, the year you made up the password, and a special year.

The website Howsecureismypassword.net will tell you how many years it would take a computer to crack your password, so bookmark it for using the next time you choose a password.

Play around with that website and you'll see that a real simple way to make a password stronger is to include some capital letters, numbers, and, most importantly, special characters like *, %, or @.

Avast's website has some good tips on building a password too, along with information on how hackers get ahold of your passwords.

There are also password services that will manager your PW's for you so you don't have to keep up with them and risk forgetting them. PC Magazine has a list of some of the top password management services.

Lastly, change your passwords once in a while. Some websites will be nice and tell you if their security was compromised, but some might sit on that info and not bother to tell you. It's just smart to change your password every so often, especially for financial services and social media.

Be safe out there, Texas.