Not sure how many of you are Linkin Park fans, but a member of the band just had a nasty run-in with someone who figured out his too-easy-to-figure-out password. Read more about it here. Word to the wise… make your passwords extra tricky to figure out. Forget birthdays and names of kids… forget using your middle name… use a combination of letters and numbers, upper and lower case.

If you want to test out the relative strength of a prospective password, a lot of companies have integrated in tools to help you out when you sign up for their services (Gmail comes to mind). You can also try online helpers like securitystats.com’s password strength meter. Whatever you do, make your sensative data and email accounts a little safer!