You should always use strong passwords for each and every account. Cybercriminals don’t need to put much effort into cracking a password these days—it only takes a little software and standard computer hardware to crack millions of passwords in just a second or two.

The more complex and random a password is, the more secure it is.

But coming up with (and memorizing) complex passwords is really difficult. This trick should make it a whole lot easier.

There have been multiple studies on the concept of the earworm. No, we’re not talking about the little bugs that crawl into your ear; we’re talking about pieces of music that get stuck in your head.

According to these studies, anywhere from 90 to 99 percent of people can get songs stuck in their heads. We went down a rabbit hole on the study of earworms, and it’s honestly remarkable just how much research has gone into this topic.

Regardless of that, it’s pretty safe to say that most of us have had the occasional song stuck in our heads, and we’re going to show you how to put it to good use.

Building Strong Passwords from Song Lyrics

There are two important factors that go into creating a strong, secure password:

1. The password is long and complex
2. The password is unique and not used for other accounts

This means you need to create and remember a lot of complex passwords. Naturally, the human brain isn’t very good at remembering long strings of random characters. The human brain, however, is pretty good at getting songs stuck in it. If we exploit this little brain hack, we can create a handful of strong, unique passwords!

For our example, let’s use Billie Eilish’s song, “Bad Guy.”

The lyrics for the chorus go like this:

So you're a tough guy
Like it really rough guy
Just can't get enough guy
Chest always so puffed guy
I'm that bad type
Make your mama sad type
Make your girlfriend mad tight
Might seduce your dad type
I'm the bad guy
Duh

It’s pretty catchy, even on paper. If we want to turn that into a password, we could just take the first letter from each word, or syllable. For this example, I’m just going to type a keystroke as the chorus is playing in my head:

syatglirlrgjcgengcayspg

Okay, so that’s about half the chorus, and I’m already at 23 characters. Not bad. Notice how I made two-syllable words generate two characters? You don’t have to do that, or you can. Whatever feels right for you.

But it’s not really complex, and it’s not really unique yet. There are millions of Avocados and Eyelashes out there (those are terms that Billie’s fanbase tends to call themselves, in case you didn’t know), and Bad Guy is a pretty popular song, so we need to make this password our own.

When I hum the song to myself, there are certain words that stand out—I’ll capitalize those.

syaTglirlRgjcgENgcaysPg

And maybe I can swap out each time she sings “guy” with a number…

syaT2lirlR4jcgEN9caysP5

And finally, I’ll throw in some special characters:

!syaT2lirlR4jcgEN9caysP5@#)

It looks extremely random, but with a little practice, I can type this in while humming along to “Bad Guy” without referencing anything. 

This sort of password is perfect for a master password for a password manager, as it is very complex and you can eventually rely on muscle memory to type it out.

Obviously, you don’t want to use our example, but you can do the same with any song lyrics, from the first dance at your wedding to the jingle for that gum commercial from the 90s that gets stuck in your head.

Not Feeling Very Creative (or Random)? Try Using a Password Manager Instead!

For those of us who aren’t very right-brained, coming up with random systems to memorize passwords is tricky. Thankfully, password managers are a great option. Most modern password managers have password generator tools that will create random passwords for you to ensure your passwords are always unique and complex. The password manager will remember the password for you, and store it in a secure vault, so you never have to bother memorizing each and every password.

You don’t want to rely on your web browser to remember and store passwords either, as that’s not as secure. For businesses, it’s also highly recommended to use a password management system that is designed for enterprises, as it lets you ensure your staff are using good password hygiene too. 

We can equip your business with an easy-to-use password manager. They are simple and affordable, and go a long way when it comes to protecting your online accounts. Give us a call today at (415) 295-4898 to get started.