How to create a strong password

Hackers are constantly upping their game with ever more sophisticated ways of getting your information.. But choosing a strong password – and updating it regularly – will go a long way toward protecting your information, which in turn will protect your finances.

The strongest password you can choose won’t be a normal word or phrase. It will be a (seemingly) random combination of letters (both upper and lower case), numbers and symbols. It will look like gibberish, but it can still have a special meaning for you so you can easily remember it.

Choose something you love, but don’t make it obvious. If you choose a password like “Friends” because that’s your favourite TV show, hackers might be able guess it by looking at your social media feeds. But you could use “6fadc@CP” because it will be easy for you to remember that the “six friends always drink coffee at Central Perk”.

Same thing if you love classic rock: “RollingStones” would be a weak password. But “Icgns!65” would be good one because you’ll remember that the song (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction came out in 1965.

• Choose a unique password for online and mobile banking and don’t use it for anything else
• Regularly update your new password once a month
• Log out of websites and devices when you are finished using them
• Use a combination of letters (upper & lower case), numbers and symbols

• Use anything that would be easy to work out with a little background knowledge: your username, actual name, name of family members, pets, favourite football teams, birthday etc.
• Use the word ‘password’, numerical sequences (for example 12345), easily recognised keypad patterns (“14780”, “qwerty”, etc) or a single commonplace dictionary word that could be cracked by common hacking programs
• Write your passwords down or share them with anyone
• Use the same user ID and password of your online banking for other online services

Remember: no HSBC employee will ever ask you for your password or OTP (One-Time-Password). If you receive a call or email from someone claiming to be an HSBC employee, government official or even a member of law enforcement and they ask you for your password, ignore the call and contact us immediately.