A reader commented on our post that suggested some creative ways to come up with passwords, like using a favorite song title:
“Hymn titles can be ueed as well, or a favorite prayer. A foreigner would be less likely to recognize the set of letters, including a plan to list them in reverse.“
Those are good ideas, but I will elaborate on your idea that this could make it harder for people from other countries to crack your password. This could be true if human beings were the ones attempting to crack your passwords. However, in the vast majority of cases, automated programs are the ones attempting to get in your account. Scammers buy them off the dark web already chocked full of common English-language passwords and combinations. That’s one of the reasons experts suggest super-long passwords these days. Sometimes, the bots just give up and move on to easier targets.
What’s scary is that they frequently purchase a list of stolen passwords from retailers or banks. The one sure way to beat them is multi-factor authentication.